•.''>" ■^X;}^:^-. Z"^' '<^ii'' 



.:.<>■ "^ 










^^<? 






ki "^ '^ '^/ ^-^^ 



-0' X 



.'./?%; 






o. 



V-' '^-^. ■ '^'' ll \^ 



,"\ 



0^ .0 "°, 






\^ 



A^' -^ 



A^' 



•S -^^ 



N 



xV ./•, 



,^^^ ,_^ .___.. ^^ ^. , 








,j^-'':y .y-" 






,A 


« * ^ \ 1 B , '-^^ 












^.,; 




-^ 


,\ ' 
















r 


-, 


"V M V n s. 






■/' 


/, '' , ^^ 


^ ^ 


(1 , 


c 


0^ ' - 


^ , 


- 










_-;-. ^.^''- *- 


\' 


■^^j '■ 


' 


, ' ' " a\^' '^., - ' 


f— 


^ 





oX' 



A\^ c 



^ -^^ '.W^' 






,0 o^ 



:^ 






^^< ,^X' 



;v^5^^ ,>:^'-^ 






^^ 



i, ^. 






,0 o. 



M' 









■^ - , c 






X 



n * -3-' 

o 






. 



X"' "y.. 



.A 



,0- 



-^,. *,,^-^ ^\^\. 



;, '>■# 



O N 



rfw... . , -^^ 



»^,.^^')4 



\\y\^^ * ,x^ 













%- ^^ 




"^' "- '^ 


/^ 










x- 


y •* ■ 


^ ^-^'^ A 


.. \ 1 « ^ 


'<?', 


v^X^ . 




'CL 


aX 



-^ 



<x^-^' 






/- " ■ . x'" 









^z. y- 




V 



>■ 







"^ ./\^'U:'*.^'='-. 



^n c> 









-bo^ 



"'^ 



HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT 



LAND GRANTS FOR EDUCATION 



NORTHWEST TERRITORY 



PAPERS 

/ OF THE 

AMERICAN 
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

Vol. I. No. 3 



HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT 



LAND GRANTS FOR EDUCATION 



NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

(Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin) 
\: bb^ By GEORGE W. KNIGHT, Ph.D. 




NEW YORK & LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

SCbe ^nitkcrbocker ^mss 
1885 

S 



t^ w 



COPYRIGHT BY 

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

This paper was prepared when the writer was studying in 
the School of Political Science of the University of Michi- 
gan, and was presented to the Faculty of the Department of 
Literature, Science, and the Arts of that institution, as a 
thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. In collecting 
material for the paper the writer visited Columbus, Indian- 
apolis, Chicago, Lansing, and Madison, and in no case has 
information received at second-hand been used where origi- 
nal papers and documents were obtainable. All of the 
references given in the foot-notes, with a single exception, 
have been made after a personal examination of the pas- 
sages referred to, and it is believed that the list of authorities 
given at the end of the paper embraces every book of im- 
portance bearing on the subject. 

An abstract of the paper was read by Professor Charles 
Kendall Adams before the American Historical Association, 
at its first public meeting, in Saratoga, September i, 1884. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

FEDERAL LEGISLATION. 

A. — Legislation Affecting the Entire Territory. 

Early History of the Western Country 7 

Movements toward a Territorial Government .... 8 

First Organic Law 9 

First Reservation of Lands by Congress for Common Schools , I2 
Motives Leading to the Reservation . . . . . .13 

The Ohio Company 15 

Ordinance of 1787 16 

First Grant for the Support of Higher Education, and the Reasons 

for Making it 17 

Second Special Grant for Higher Education .... 18 

Reservation for Schools throughout the Entire Northwest Terri- 
tory, and for Seminaries in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan . 18 
Views Expressed in 1825 on the Relations of the National Govern- 
ment and Education ........ 19 

Swamp Lands Granted to the States ...... 20 

First Movements toward the Endowment of Agricultural Colleges . 22 

Bill Making a Grant to each State for that Purpose ... 23 

Debates on the Bill 24 

The Bill Vetoed by President Buchanan 25 

A Grant Finally Made in 1863 26 

More Recent Projects for the Endowment of Common Schools . 26 

B. — Legislation Affecting Individual States. 
{a) Ohio. 

The Lands Already Reserved, Granted to the State at the Time of 

her Admission, on Certain Conditions ..... 28 

History and Meaning of the Conditions ..... 29 

Modifications of the Grant Demanded by the State . . .31 
First Constitutional Objection Raised to Grants by Congress for 

Educational Purposes ........ 32 

Subsequent Grants to the State 33 



ii Contents, 

{b) Indiana. 
Similar Grants and Conditions Made when Indiana Becomes a State 35 
A Few Differences • 35 

(c) Illinois. 
A Large Grant Made in Addition to the Usual Quota ... 36 

{d) Michigan. 
Peculiar Circumstances Attending her Admission . . . .37 

Propositions of the State 38 

The Usual Grants Made, but the Conditions Changed , , . 39, 

(if) Wisconsin. 

Obtains a Larger Grant than that of any other State Carved out of 

the Northwest Territory 40. 

PART II. 

STATE LEGISLATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE GRANTS. 

A, — School and Swamp Lands. 
{a) Ohio. 

Advantages to be Derived by Leasing Educational Lands . , 43 
Ohio Adopts the Leasing System ....... 44 

Unwise Regulations 45 

Special Legislation Creeps in ....... 47 

Attempts to Correct Abuses and Check Evils . . . .48' 

The Evils Engrafted by the Legislature upon the Leasing System 

Lead to its Final Abandonment ...... 49- 

Laws under which the Lands were Sold 52 

New Evils Develop Themselves ....... 54 

Embezzlements and Relief Measures , . . . . .55 

Legislation Concerning the Lands in the Connecticut Western Re- 
serve ........... 57 

All School Funds Borrowed by the State 58 

Saline Lands . , . . . . . , . .59' 

Swamp Lands .......... 60 

Hasty Sales and Special Legislation the Chief Causes for the Fail- 
ure to Realize the Full Benefits of the Grants . . .61 
{b) Indiana. 

The Tenant System and Indiana Legislation . , . .64 

The State Finally Decides to Sell the School Lands ... 67 

Method of Investing the Funds 68 

Losses 69 

Attempt to Divert the Fund from its Specified Use ... 71 
Saline Lands . . . . . ... . . .73 

Swamp Lands .......... 74 

Comparison of the Methods Pursued by Ohio and Indiana in Invest- 
ing the School Funds ........ 76 



Contents. iill 

{c) Illinois, 

Early Legislation 77 

Provision for Sales, Reasonably Wise ...... 78 

Undue Haste and Questionable Motives of the Legislature in Sell- 
ing the Lands ......... 79 

Subsequent Legislation No Improvement ..... 80 

How the Fund Is Invested ........ 81 

Swamp Lands Well Managed ....... 82 

The " Three-Per-Cent. Fund " 83 

Illegal Use of the Fund in Order to Lessen State Taxation . . 83 
{d) Michigan. 

Territorial Legislation ......... 87 

System of Sales Adopted as soon as She Becomes a State . , 8g 

Reasons for this Step ......... 89 

Wise Provisions of the First Law ....... 90 

Auspicious Beginning Followed by Reduction of Prices, Relief 

Legislation, and General Disaster ...... 91 

Price of Lands Already Sold and Only Partly Paid for, Reduced 94 
Losses through Bad Investment and Faulty System of Manage- 
ment . . . . . . . . . . . 96 

A Change for the Better ........ 97 

The State Borrows the School Fund . . . . . .98 

Further Reduction of Price in 1846 . , , . . • 99 

Since that Time the Management Good ..... 99 

Swamp Lands .......... 100 

Thousands of Acres Wasted ....... 102 

{e) Wisconsin. 

Territorial Legislation 104 

Constitutional Provisions and Restrictions ..... 104 

Wrong Policy Adopted at the Outset ...... 106 

Lands Placed on the Market at Low Prices to Attract Immigrants . 106 

All Early Laws Framed with the same Object .... 108 

Losses through Poor Investments and Dishonest Management . Ill 
A Change to a Mode of Investing Which Has Many Arguments in 

its Favor . . . . . . . . . .113 

Swamp Lands . . . . . . . . . .114 

Wise Enactments and Good Management Secure a Large Fund 

from this Source for the Support of Education . , . Il6 . 

B. — Seminary or University Lands. 
{a) Ohio. 

Disposition of the Ohio Company Seminary Lands . . .117 
Ordered Leased for Ninety-Nine Years . . . . .118 

Modification of the Law . 119 

A Few Sales Made I20 

Litigation with the Lessees 120 

Interference of the Legislature in 1843 121. 



:iv Contents, 

Subsequent History of the Grant 122 

The Third Township Granted for a Seminary Unwisely Disposed of 122 
(3) Indiana. 

Territorial Legislation Gives the First Seminary Township to Vin- 

cennes University . . . . . . . . .124 

The State Legislature Attempts to Revoke the Grant and Bestow 

it upon the State University ....... 125 

Disposition of the Land and Investment of the Fund . . .126 

Litigation with Vincennes University ...... 128 

The State University Defeated but Obtains an Additional Grant 

from Congress ......... 128 

Subsequent Legislation .130 

{^) Illinois. 

Bad Features of the Early Laws ....... 132 

Causes for Early Sales ......... 133 

The Fund Diverted for Thirty Years from its Legitimate Object . 134 

The Worst Managed Fund in the Northwest .... 135 

An Additional Fund for a College '135 

(^) Michigan. 

Territorial Legislation 136 

How the University Missed a Fortune 137 

Early State Laws 139 

Preemption Claimants Rob the University through the Instrumen- 
tality of the Legislature ........ 140 

Relief Legislation and Reduction of Price ..... 142 

Loan by ihe State to the University 143 

Present Condition of the Fund . 144 

\e) Wisconsin. 

Early History 145 

Sales at Low Prices ......... 145 

Followed by Sales at Lower Prices 147 

Having Sold the First Grant at Petty Prices the State Obtains a 

Second Grant and Treats it in the Same Way . . . 147 

The Early Policy Finally Condemned and Reparation Made . 149 

A Portion of the Fund Illegally Used 149 

'C. — Agricultural College Grant. 
{a) Ohio. 

Scrip Received and Sold at a Low Price 150 

Ameliorating Circumstances . . 151 

{]>) Indiana. 

The Experience of Ohio Is Repeated in Indiana . . . .152 

(c) Illinois 

Does No Better 153 

(d') Michigan. 

A College in Existence Before the Grant Was Made . . .153 



Contents. v 

Mistaken Policy Pursued in Choosing the Lands . . . .154 

The Fund Well Managed 155 

{e) Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin Selects Good Lands, and Sells them too Cheaply . .156 

D.^ — Conclusion. 

General Failure to Realize the Utmost Benefit from the Educa- 
tional Grants . . . . . . . . .157 

Six Causes for the Failure ........ 162 

Appendix 169 

>LiST OF Authorities 173 



PART I. 
FEDERAL LEGISLATION. 

A. — LEGISLATION AFFECTING THE ENTIRE TERRITORY. 

By the treaty of Paris in 1763 the Mississippi River w^ks^ 
•made the boundary between the British and Spanish posses- 
sions in North America. When the United States gained 
their independence, the same river marked the western Hmit 
of their territory. None of the land was public domain. 
The individual States claimed the entire western country 
under various and conflicting titles. To the region west of 
Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio River, Virginia, Con- 
necticut, New York, and Massachusetts asserted their title by 
virtue of charters, grants, and purchases. Before the war 
of the Revolution had closed, it was felt by the statesmen of 
the country that the welfare of the whole people would be 
promoted if the individual States should cede to Congress 
this vast unsettled region, to be used as a resource for the 
payment of the war debt. Congress, in September, 1780, 
adopted resolutions setting forth the desirability of this step, 
and invited the States to make the cessions.^ To remove 
any hesitation which might arise in giving Congress absolute 
control over so large a domain, a resolution was adopted a 
month later, declaring that any territory so ceded should be 
disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, 
and should be formed into sovereign republican States, of a 
given area, on the same footing with the original thirteen.* 

^ Document A, 64. (For full titles of documents and books referred to in 
this paper see the list on page 173.) 
' Ibid. 

[79] 7 



8 Land Gratits for Education in the [80 

In response to the invitation, New York, on the first day 
of March, 1781, relinquished her claims to the western 
territory. On the second of January in the same year, 
the Legislature of Virginia submitted to Congress a propo- 
sition to cede her western lands on certain conditions. 
Owing to these conditions the proposal lingered before 
Congress for many months, awaiting definite action. On the 
fifth of June, 1783, Colonel Bland, a delegate from Virginia,, 
introduced a motion to accept the cession on the terms 
offered, and to divide the country into districts of a speci- 
fied size, each district to become a State as soon as it con- 
tained twenty thousand inhabitants. In these districts the 
Continental soldiers were to receive bounty lands, while Con- 
gress was to reserve one tenth of the territory, the income 
from which was " to be appropriated to the payment of the 
civil list of the United States, the erecting frontier forts, the 
founding seminaries of learning, and the surplus (if any) to 
be appropriated to the building and equipping a navy." ' 
This motion was referred to a committee, and never again, 
came up for consideration. It is, however, to be noted as 
the first proposition made in Congress looking toward an: 
appropriation of public lands for the support of education. 
While Congress was theorizing and hesitating over the 
Virginia cession, a movement was started in New England 
which, though unsuccessful in its immediate object, ren- 
dered great service to the country in hastening the opening 
of the West. Several months before Colonel Bland's motion 
was offered, Rufus Putnam and other ofificers of the New 
England soldiery had conceived the idea of forming a State, 
between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, to be settled by 
army veterans and their families. In April, 1783, Colonel 
Timothy Pickering outlined a plan for the proposed State, 
upon the basis of which Putnam drew up a petition to be 
signed by the officers and submitted to Congress, asking for 
leave to plant such a colony.^ In his plan Pickering pro- 
posed that, after a certain amount of land had been dis- 
tributed among the army in payment of services in the war, 

* Apud I Bancroft, Appendix, 312. " Apud i Bancroft, Appendix, 314. 



8i] Northwest Territory, 9. 

" all the surplus lands should be the common property of the 
State, and disposed of for the common good, as for laying 
out roads, building bridges, erecting public buildings, estab- 
lishing schools and academies, defraying the expenses of the 
government, and other public uses." ' The petition was 
forwarded to Congress through General Washington, in a 
letter to whom, June 16, 1783, urging him to assist in 
furthering its success, Putnam suggested that the lands 
should be divided into townships six miles square," with, 
reservations for schools and the ministry/ The subject was 
referred to a committee for consideration, but, though it 
remained before them many months, it never received favora- 
ble action. 

Congress was, however, awakened from its lethargy. The 
energy of the delegates was diverted from talking to acting. 
In September, 1783, a resolution was passed to accept the 
Virginia cession with some modification of the terms offered.* 
The Legislature of Virginia assented to the modification, and, 
on the first day of March, 1784, ceded to "the United States 
in Congress assembled, for the common benefit of the States," 
all claim to the territory northwest of the Ohio River.' 
Having thus spent three years in concluding a matter 
which need not have taken as many months. Congress, with- 
out waiting for Massachusetts and Connecticut to give up 
their claims to portions of the same lands,* proceeded to 
establish its authority over the newly acquired territory. 

' I Pickering, 546. 

" The first suggestion of townships of this size is found in a report made to 
Congress in November, 1781. — i Bancroft, 106. 

" Walker, 30-36. Washington sent a copy of this letter to Congress with the 
p&tition. 

* Document A, 67. 

^ Poore, 427, 428. By the terms of the deed of cession, enough land was to 
be reserved from sale by Congress to satisfy bounty warrants promised by Vir- 
ginia to her soldiers in the late war. The tract subsequently set aside for this 
purpose was known as the Virginia Military Reservation. 

• Massachusetts ceded her claims April 19, 1785, and Connecticut, September 
13, 17S6. The latter retained the ownership of the land between Lake Erie 
and the forty-first parallel of latitude, and extending westward one hundred and 
twenty miles from the western boundary of Pennsylvania. This portion of the 
State of Ohio is known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. 



10 Land Grants for Education in the [82 

On the same day that saw the Virginia deed of cession 
delivered to Congress, a plan was reported to that body 
for the temporary government of the western territory. 
This plan was the work of Thomas Jefferson. While bor- 
rowing some features from the motion offered by Bland in 
the previous year, it omitted the provision for seminaries of 
learning. After important amendments, none of which 
touched upon educational provisions, it was adopted on the 
twenty-third of April.' 

Few statesmen of that day valued this territory for the 
almost unlimited possibilities it afforded for the future great- 
ness of the nation, in the establishment of new states which 
in wealth and influence and power would soon rival their 
older sisters. If this thought found place in the minds of 
any, it was generally subordinated to a far less exalted senti- 
ment. " The western lands were looked upon by all the 
financiers of this period as an asset to be cashed at once 
for payment of current expenses of the government and 
extinguishment of the national debt." ^ This had been 
the view of Congress in 1780, when it first asked for a cession 
of the land^s and this view still prevailed.^ 

Some guaranty of protection to settlers had been neces- 
sary before they would be willing to purchase lands in what 
was then the distant western wilderness. Such a guaranty 
was given by the ordinance for the government of the terri- 
tory. Other measures were essential to the accomplishment 
of the main object of Congress, — the sale of the lands. 
Hitherto settlement in the west had been discouraged and 
prohibited.* Now, however, all through the Atlantic States 

' I Bancroft, 158. 

" Document A, 196. 

' A few days after JefEerson's ordinance of government had been adopted, 
•"Congress, in urging the remaining States to follow the example of New York 
and Virginia in giving up their claims to western lands, resolved ' ' that our 
creditors have a right to expect that funds shall be provided on which they may 
rely for their indemnification ; that Congress still considers vacant territory as 
an important resource ; and that, therefore, the said States be earnestly pressed, 
by immediate and liberal cessions, to forward these necessary ends and to pro- 
mote the harmony of the union." — Ibid. 

* Ibid., 63, 196. 



S3] NortJiiuest Territory. II 

men were looking toward this region and waiting for it to 
be thrown open to purchasers and settlers. Congress saw 
that the realization of its hopes of financial relief through 
the disposal of the lands lay in the adoption of liberal terms 
of sale. Yet they proceeded with the deliberation, or hesita- 
tion, which characterized all their doings at this period. 

On the seventh of May, 1784, a bill was reported to Con- 
gress by Thomas Jefferson " for ascertaining the mode of 
locating and disposing of lands in the western territory." 
The ordinance as reported contained complete directions for 
the survey of the land, and prescribed in detail the method 
and terms on which sales should be made.' The report 
was made a special order for May tenth, but was not called 
up until the twenty-eighth, when Congress voted to postpone 
its consideration indefinitely.* Nothing further was heard 
of it until March fourth, 1785, when it was again reported to 
Congress unchanged.' Copies of this report were sent to a few 
prominent men outside of Congress who were especially inter- 
ested in the western country. The evident object of this 

' Journals of Congress, iv., 416. 

' Ibid., 419. According to the popular belief of the American people, Jeffer- 
son is entitled to the credit of nearly all the wise provisions of the organic law 
of the western or northwest territory. It is commonly asserted that he was the 
author of the first provision for a federal land grant for educational purposes in 
the northwest, and the ordinance referred to above is cited as authority for the 
assertion. The present Commissioner of Education, Hon. John Eaton, has 
fallen into the popular current, and in an article in the January, 1884, number 
of Edttcation (p. 293) says : " Mr. Jefferson was chairman of the committee 
that in May, 1784, made a report on the organization of the western territory, 
which provided ' that there shall be reserved the central section of every town- 
ship for the maintenance of public schools, and the section immediately adjoining 
the same for the maintenance of religion.' " 

I shall show further on in this paper that the ordinance as finally adopted did 
contain a provision for the reservation of school lands, but that it was inserted 
after Jefferson had left his seat in Congress, and at the suggestion of some one 
else. In order to leave no chance for error, my friend, Mr. F. H. Hodder, of 
Washington, examined at my request the original manuscript of Jefferson's re- 
port (preserved in MS., " Papers of Old Congress," vol. xxx., 59-65) and found 
it identical with the report as given in the printed journal, and that it contains 
no reference to a reservation or grant of lands for educational uses. Like many 
others, Mr. Eaton has mistaken the draft of the ordinance reported in April, 
17S5, long after Jefferson had left Congress, for the original report of 1784. 

^Journals of Congress, iv., 477. 



12 Land Grants for Ediicatio7i iii the [84 

was to obtain their opinion of its acceptability to the 
people and to intending purchasers. Some of its pro- 
visions were criticised, and its omissions noted. Colonel 
Timothy Pickering, writing under date of March eighth, 
four days after the report was made, to Rufus King, a mem- 
ber of the committee, noted, among other objections, that 
there was " no provision made for ministers of the gospel, 
nor even for schools or academies " ; adding, " the latter at 
least might have been brought into view." ^ 

On the sixteenth of March the ordinance was referred 
to a committee consisting of one member from each State. 
Among these were Rufus King and William Grayson. On the 
twelfth or the fourteenth of April the committee reported a 
new ordinance, bearing the same title as the one drawn by Jef- 
ferson. While embodying many of the features of the latter, 
it contained numerous modifications, changes, and additions. 
Among others, the following clause had been inserted : 
" There shall be reserved the central section of every town- 
ship for the maintenance of public schools, and the section 
immediately adjoining for the support of religion, the profits 
arising therefrom in both instances to be applied forever 
according to the will of the majority of male residents of 
full age within the same." ^ Rufus King sent a copy of 
this report to Colonel Pickering, and wrote : '' You will 
find thereby that your ideas have had weight with the 
committee who reported the ordinance." ^ To Timothy 
Pickering, then, if to any one man, is to be attributed 
the suggestion which led to the first educational land 
grant. The object to be gained by such a clause was dis- 
cussed by Grayson in a letter to Washington, dated April 
fifteenth, in which he wrote that " the idea of a township, with 
the temptation of a support for religion and education, holds 

* I Pickering, 509. This is still another proof that Jefferson's report, which 
was identical with that of March fourth, did not contain provisions for schools. 

''MS., "Papers of Old Congress," vol. Ivi., 461. It is given with a slight 
amendment in the printed Journals of Congress, iv., 500. The report is in 
the handwriting of Grayson. This is the clause which Mr. Eaton erroneously 
credits to Jefferson. 

*i Pickering, 511. 



85] Northwest Territory. 13 

forth an inducement for neighborhoods of the same rehgious 
sentiments to confederate for the purpose of purchasing and 
setthng together." ' The ordinance was debated in Con- 
gress for a month. On the twenty-third of April the whole 
clause referring to religion was struck out, and on the 
twentieth of May the ordinance, amended in many par- 
ticulars, was adopted. The territory was to be divided 
into townships six miles square, and each township sub- 
divided into tracts one mile square, numbered from one 
to thirty-six consecutively. The mode and terms of sale 
were carefully prescribed. The clause relating to a reserva- 
tion for schools, as amended and condensed by Congress,, 
declared that " there shall be reserved from sale the lot No. 
16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools 
within the said township." ^ This reservation marks the 
beginning of the policy which, uniformly observed since 
then, has set aside one thirty-sixth of the land in each new 
State for the maintenance of common schools. 

The idea has become prevalent that this grand endowment 
is due solely to the zeal of the statesmen of that day in the 
cause of education ; that disinterested generosity was the 
motive impelling Congress to make the first reservation and 
establish the precedent to be observed by all future genera- 
tions of statesmen. While it is easy to misjudge motives, the 
evidence all tends to show other reasons for the action of 
Congress in 1785. Jefferson h^d several years earlier ex- 
pressed broad and comprehensive views regarding education 
and the value of public schools.' Had the endowment 
of schools in the western country by Congress been gen- 
erally considered proper or advisable, he would have been 
quick to utilize any suggestions of that nature, and to 
incorporate them in the organic law of the territory. Yet 
neither of the two ordinances, as drafted by him, referred by 
a single clause or word to the subject of education. It can- 

^ The letter is given in full in i Bancroft, Appendix, 425. In the same letter 
Grayson maintains that "the great design of the land ofifice is revenue," and 
that the whole ordinance was framed with that in view. 

''Journals of Congress, iv., 521 ; Public Lands, part i., 13. 

' Morse, 48, 49 ; 8 Jefferson, 388. 



14 Land Grants for Education in the [86 

not be urged that the idea had not yet been thought of, for 
the motion of Colonel Bland and the petition and letter of 
Putnam, both suggesting a land endowment for schools, had 
been before Congress for many months. 

This negative sort of testimony is supplemented by evi- 
dence of a more positive character. Facts already stated in 
connection with the reservation point directly to the cause 
of its introduction into the ordinance. The first object of 
Congress was to sell the lands, in order to meet the obliga- 
tions of the United States. They were pledged to dispose 
of them for the common benefit of the States. It is proba- 
ble that Jefferson, like others, then and since, did not at the 
outset regard a gift of a portion of the territory for educa- 
tion as fulfilling that pledge. After the introduction of his 
second ordinance, it became evident that some provision 
must be made for schools, or few would venture into the 
wilderness away from civilization. Accordingly, as every 
interest of the country urged a speedy sale of the public 
domain, the reservation clause was finally inserted as an in- 
ducement to purchasers. Congress unquestionably expected 
that the value of the remaining lands would be increased, 
and purchasers more easily obtained.^ The reservation was 
a gift from Congress, but was not made with the sole 
thought of promoting education. Rather was it offered 
because Congress was in a situation where it needed to sell 
the property, and its customers suggested this as one of the 
conditions of purchase.^ Had any other equally feasible 

'Chase, 32. Education in Ohio, 13. The same opinion was expressed by 
a Congressional committee in 1858 : " The donation of section sixteen for the 
support of the township was an inducement to purchasers, and enhanced the 
value of the adjacent lands, the sale of which indemnified the government for 
the donation which it made." — Document E, 3. President Pierce in 1854 said : 
' ' Such reservations and grants are the acts of a mere landowner disposing of a 
small share of his property in a way to augment the value of the residue, and 
in this way to encourage the early occupation of it by the pioneer." — Senate 
Journal, 33d Cong., ist Session, 368. 

^ " The sale of the public lands was the principal motive of these grants, and 
education only a secondary consideration, conducing, in the opinion of Congress, 
to effect the main purpose." — Extract from a report to the Illinois Legislature in 
1823. Apud Pillsbury, cxxxix. See also a letter of Governor Woodbridge of 
Michigan. Shearman, 2. <■ 



Sy'] NortJiwcst Territory. 15 

condition been suggested, it is by no means certain that 
Congress would, at that time, have made this grand pro- 
vision for education. 

After the adoption of this ordinance, the petition of the 
New England soldiers, while it had served a good purpose 
in hastening the laggard steps of Congress, had no prospect 
of success. Realizing this, Generals Rufus Putnam and 
Benjamin Tupper issued a call through the newspapers of 
New England, in response to which a small meeting of citi- 
zens was held in Boston on the first day of March, 1786. At 
this meeting the Ohio company was formed for the purpose 
of purchasing a large tract of land on the Ohio River, and 
settling it with soldiers of the late war. During the year 
one fourth of the stock of the company was subscribed. In 
March, 1787, the stockholders elected Samuel Holdcn Par- 
sons, Manasseh Cutler, and Rufus Putnam directors, with full 
power to negotiate with Congress for the purchase of the 
desired lands.' Parsons drew up a memorial in which he set 
forth the desires and proposals of the company. The paper 
was presented to Congress in May, and was immediately re- 
ferred to a special committee. 

On the fifth of July Dr. Cutler reached New York, where 
Congress was sitting. He immediately began in an energetic 
way to push the interests of the company. The proposition 
to plant a colony gave new importance to a subject which 
had engaged the attention of Congress at various times for 
more than a year." The government provided for the western 
territory in 1784 had been designed as a mere temporary 
arrangement. Plans for its permanent organization had 
been presented in 1786. Discouraged by the slowness of 
the land sales and the slight tide of emigration to the 
west. Congress had not entered with zeal into the dis- 
cussion of the bill. Now, however, animated by the pros- 
pect of a large sale, if a satisfactory form of government 
should be provided, Congress speedily took up the measure 
and referred it to a new committee. The committee bent 
themselves to their work and in two days reported back a new 

^ Hildreth, 193-199. ' 2 Bancroft, iii, 112. 



l6 Land Grants for Education in the [88 

bill differing in many particulars from the plan referred to 
them.' It contained several new and vital provisions, among 
them a clause concerning education. Two days later, on the 
thirteenth of July, the measure became the famous ordinance 
of 1787 for the government of the "Northwest Territory."" 
After outlining the form of government, the ordinance con- 
tained six articles of compact, irrevocable except with the 
consent of the original States and the people of the States 
to be formed from the territory. The third of these articles 
declared that " Religion, morality, and knowledge being 
necessary to good government and the happiness of man- 
kind, schools and the means of education shall forever be 
encouraged." ' By this clause was the Congress of the United 
States pledged to make future provision for education, of 
Avhich all succeeding generations should derive the benefit.'' 
During these same days the proposals of the Ohio company 
to purchase lands were receiving careful consideration. In 
view of the financial straits of the United States, the success- 
ful conclusion of the negotiations was of vital importance to 
Congress. The committee to whom the matter was referred, 
after several conferences with Dr. Cutler, presented a report 
on the tenth of July recommending the sale on the terms 
demanded by the company. In accordance with those 
demands one lot in each township was to be reserved for the 
support of common schools, another lot for the support of 

^ For the bill as it went to the committee, see 5 West. Law your., 534, or 
122 ^V. A. Review, 242. 

^ This territory embraced the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the portion of Minnesota lying east of the Mis- 
sissippi River. 

^ Poore, 429. 

* That the introduction of this and other features into the ordinance was due 
to Dr. Cutler, has been asserted with considerable force. Congress was anxious 
to provide an ordinance satisfactory to the company that offered to purchase so 
large a tract of land, and Dr. Cutler was invited to favor the committee with 
his views. It is certain that he proposed several amendments. His journal 
tells lis that all his suggestions with one exception were embodied in the ordi- 
dance. — ^Yalker, 56, 57 ; 53 A^. A. Review, 336, 337. In the absence of direct 
proof there is much evidence tending to show that this clause was one of those 
-suggested by him. The whole subject is ably discussed by W. F. Poole in the 
y. A. Review for April, 1S76. 



89] Northwest Territory. 17 

the ministry, and four townships for the establishment of a 
university.* 

Though anxious to conclude the sale Congress regarded 
these reservations as too liberal, and in an ordinance, framed 
July nineteenth, stating the conditions of a contract, the only 
reservation made was lot number sixteen for schools, as pro- 
vided in the general ordinance of 1785.* This was unsatis- 
factory to Dr. Cutler, and two days later another series of pro- 
posals was submitted by him, setting forth the only conditions 
on which the company would purchase the lands. Among 
these conditions it was specified that "lot No. 16 be given 
perpetually, by Congress, to the maintenance of schools, and 
lot No. 29 to the purposes of religion in the said townships. 
Two townships near the centre and of good land to be also 
given by Congress for the support of a literary institution, 
to be applied to the intended object by the legislature of the 
state." ' These demands met with opposition in Congress, 
but the pressure of debts, the need for money, and the 
threat by Dr. Cutler to purchase lands elsewhere from some 
individual State, prevented a second rejection of the con- 
ditions. On the twenty-third of July an ordinance v\-as 
passed,* which, with a few modifications made four days later 
on the further demand of Cutler,' authorized the Board of 
Treasury to contract for the sale of the land on the precise 
terms and with the exact reservations demanded by the com- 
pany. This ordinance, and the subsequent contract by virtue 
of it, secured to the State of Ohio tvv'o townships for the per- 
petual support of a university. The same play of forces which 
brought about the school reservation in 1785 compelled the 
grant for a university in 1787. The latter was fairly wrung 
from the hands of an unwilling Congress. There was no dis- 
play of zeal for education in the feeble body at New York 
-which wielded the legislative authority of the United States. 
The persistency of Dr. Cutler, coupled with the dire necessity 

' 2 Bancroft, iii. 

* 122 N. A. Review, 262 ; Walker, 58 ; 53 N. A. Revie'oj, 337. 

* Apud 2 Bancroft, Appendix, 433. 

* I U. S. Laws (B. & D's Ed.), 573. 

' Journals of Congress, iv., Appendix, 17. 



1 8 Land Grants for Education in the [9a 

of the government, was the force which won the day for the 
Ohio company and for higher education. To him and his 
fellow-directors belongs the honor of obtaining, with much 
labor, this first gift for a university/ 

In the same year John Cleves Symmes contracted with 
the Board of Treasury for a large tract in the territory. 
Similar reservations were made for schools and the ministry, 
with one entire township for a seminary of learning. These 
two contracts, containing the gift of three townships for 
higher education, as well as the only appropriations ever 
made by Congress for the support of religion, completed the 
land legislation of the Congress of the Confederation. All 
other sales of public lands in the Northwest Territory have' 
been made under the general land ordinance of 1785 and its 
successors. 

After the adoption of the Constitution, a general law for 
the sale of public lands in the Northwest Territory ^ reserved 
from sale " for the future disposal of the United States," 
four sections at the centre of each township. Section six- 
teen was one of these four.° In 1804 Congress established 
three land districts (Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Detroit) in 
the Territory of Indiana.* Following the precedent estab- 
lished by the ordinance of 1785, section number sixteen in 
each township was set aside for the use of schools within 
the same. In addition to that, one township in each land 
district was reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, 
and all salt springs with contiguous lands " for the future 
disposal " of Congress. ^ Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan 

1 122 N. A. Review, 263. 

" I U. S. Stat., 464. 

^ The title to the lands "reserved from sale " by the general laws thus far 
mentioned, still remained in Congress. When the provision was first adopted 
in 1785 it is not probable that the precise mode in which the lands should, 
eventually be utilized had been decided upon. The policy was soon adopted 
of holding them until a State was formed, to which the school sections were 
given in trust. The university lands in the Ohio company contract and the 
seminary township in the Symmes purchase were, however, " to be used by the 
Legislature of the State when established." 

* After Ohio became a State in 1802, the remainder of the Northwest Terri- 
tory was known as the Territory of Indiana. 

*2 U. S. Stat., 277. 



Qi] Northwest Territory. 19 

each subsequently received one of the seminary townships. 

Owing to errors in running the surveys, and to the ir- 
regular course of the rivers which constituted the boundary 
lines of the new States, many fractional townships were 
formed. The early laws made no reservations for schools in 
such cases, but in 1826 a proportional amount of land was 
granted for that purpose to each fractional township.' Under 
the preemption laws section sixteen in many townships 
was preempted by settlers and inadvertently sold by the 
United States. A law was enacted in 1859 granting other 
lands for schools in such cases.^ The law also extended to 
cases where section sixteen was fractional or wanting " from 
any natural cause whatever." Under these laws each of 
the five States has received from the public domain for the 
support of schools an amount of land equal to a full thirty- 
sixth of its area. Thus has the government fulfilled, to 
the letter, the promise implied in the ordinance of 1785, to 
devote one thirty-sixth of the land for the primary educa- 
tion of all subsequent generations. 

During the early years of the present century attempts 
were made by most of the original States to obtain land 
grants for their schools. They deemed it unjust that only 
the new States should be thus assisted by Congress. For 
various sound reasons not pertinent here, Congress declined 
to make such grants. While refusing to donate the lands 
themselves for educational purposes, many looked favorably 
upon a project to give to all the States, old and new, a cer- 
tain per cent, of the proceeds of the sales of public lands.^ 
This project was urged at several sessions of Congress. In 
1825 it received the careful consideration of the Committee 
on Public Lands. The result of their investigations was 
embodied in an exhaustive report which discussed the ques- 
tion in all its phases. While they did not claim for Congress 
the right to use the proceeds of taxes, excises, etc., for the 
promotion of education, they considered such an appropria- 
tion of the moneys derived from public lands as constitu- 

1 4 U. S. Stat.. 179. " II U. S. Stat, 385. 
' State Papers, 3 Public Lands, 496. 



" 20 Land Grants for Education in the [92 

tional, proper, and wise from the standpoint of the govern- 
ment, and as certain to promote the general welfare of the 
people/ While the proposition never obtained the approval 
of Congress, the report is remarkable for its broad view of the 
relations of the national government to the education of the 
people. A later generation has advanced one step further 
in claiming that any national revenues may be used in this 
cause, but no later advocate of a broad construction of the 
powers of Congress over education has adduced a single valid 
argument which was not put forth in this report in 1825. 

The policy of setting aside a certain section in each town- 
ship for schools, regardless of the character of the land, gave 
rise to some inequalities in the endowment of the townships. 
In many instances the section fell upon poor or worthless 
land which could contribute little toward supplying school 
facilities. So long as each township derived its sole govern- 
ment support for learning from its own reserved section, 
the quality of the land was an important element in deter- 
mining the character of the schools in the township. Many 
attempts were made to induce Congress to allow townships 
having an inferior section to exchange it for better land. 
Congress in considering the first of these petitions wisely de- 
clined to take a step which would have resulted in endless 
confusion, and have given rise to incessant demands for ex- 
change, and opportunities for fraud.^ This policy has been 
departed from on one or two occasions, but only for a 
single township in each instance.^ In the States ad- 
mitted since 1836 the proceeds of all sales of school lands 
have been consolidated into one fund, and the income dis- 
tributed pro rata over the whole State. In this way the in- 
equalities produced in the older States have been avoided, 
and all the people derive equal benefit from the grant. 

About the year 1840 the States of Arkansas and Missouri 
memorialized Congress on the subject of draining and 
reclaiming a large tract of swamp lands lying along their 
-common border. They represented that if Congress should 

^ State Papers, 4 Public Lands, 750. ^4 Cong. Debates, 479. 

3 Illinois School Reports, 1881-82, cxxxi. 



93] Northwest Territory. 2i 

not deem it proper to enter upon such work itself, they 
would undertake and complete the task provided the land in 
question was given to them as a partial compensation for the 
expense involved. For some time these memorials, renewed 
annually, obtained no response from Congress. At length, in 
1847, the Commissioner of the General Land OfKce suggested 
that " such swamp and other lands as are from local causes 
unfit for settlement and cultivation in their present con- 
dition " be granted by Congress to the States in which they 
lie, " in order that such portions of them as may be reclaimed 
may be made productive and available to such States 
for purposes of education, internal improvement, and 
such other public uses as those States may deem best cal- 
culated to advance their own peculiar interests."' In 
1848 the usual petitions of Arkansas and Missouri were 
referred to a select committee who reported a bill making a 
grant to those States.^ This, however, failed to become a 
law. In the next Congress a bill was introduced which pro- 
posed to grant to the State of Arkansas, "' to enable her to 
construct the necessary levees and drains," all the unsold 
swamp and overflowed lands in the State " made unfit thereby 
for cultivation." It was supposed that the sale of the lands 
when drained would in a great measure reimburse the State 
for the expenses of reclaiming them. In the committee to 
whom the bill was referred, its provisions and benefits were 
extended, " to each of the other States of the Union in 
which such swamp and overflowed lands may be situated." ^ 
With this broad extension it was passed in 1850.'* The 
act required that *' all legal subdivisions, the greater por- 
tion of which is 'wet and unfit for cultivation,' should 
be included " in the grants to the States, the only require- 
ment in return being that the proceeds in any way de- 

^ Document B, 32. 

" The reasons adduced by the committee were that the work was needed, that 
Congress would not and could not do it, and that from a mere pecuniary stand- 
point the United States would lose nothing, for the neighboring lands, then 
undesirable, would by the improvement be greatly increased in value. — Docu- 
ment C. 

' 21 Globe, 232. * 9 U. S. Stat., 519. 



22 Land Grants for Education in the [94 

rived from them should be used, " as far as necessary," 
in reclaiming the landso By this almost unexpected act 
the several States of the Northwest Territory received a 
valuable gift/ In these States much of the so-called swamp 
land, granted by the broad terms of the act, required little 
drainage, and a still greater amount, owing to the nature of 
the land, could be reclaimed at slight expense. These facts 
made it evident that a large sum above the cost of drainage 
would be derived from their sale. The law laid no restric- 
tions upon the disposition of such a surplus, and several of 
the States, acting upon the suggestion of the Land Com- 
missioner,^ soon enacted that the whole or a portion of the 
net proceeds of the lands should be devoted to the support 
of common schools. Thus, though Congress gave no evi- 
dence of an intention to increase the endowment of education 
when granting the swamp lands,' the subsequent action of 
the States themselves brings the consideration of the man- 
agement and disposition of the lands within the scope of this 
paper. 

While Congress was engaged with the swamp-land bill, the 
establishment of schools or colleges whose special object 
should be to aflord instruction in methods of agriculture and 
all kindred subjects, waS' beginning to attract attention in 
some of the Western States. The possible benefits of such 
schools were seen and urged by prominent agriculturists., 
Soon the Legislatures of the States became interested in the 
matter. The people remembered the great impulse and 
valuable assistance given by Congress to the cause of com- 
mon-school and academical instruction, and it was not long 
before the idea of obtaining land grants for the endowment 

' Prior to June 30, 1S80, Ohio had received under this law 25,640 acres ; 
Indiana, 1,257,588 acres ; Illinois, 1,454,283 acres ; Michigan, 5,659,217 acres ; 
Wisconsin, 3,071,459 acres. — Document A, 222. 

"^ Supra, 21. 

^The possibility of a surplus revenue accruing to the States M^as known to the 
committee who reported the bill to Congress in 1850. In their report they 
quoted with approval the suggestion of the Land Commissioner regarding the 
use which the States might make of the proceeds of the lands. — Document D, 3. 
In the debates in Congress the question of a surplus, or its disposition, seems. 
not to have been brought forward. 



95] Northwest Territory. 23 

of these proposed agricultural schools presented itself as 
a proper and easy method of supporting them. In 1850 the 
Legislature of Michigan asked Congress for a grant of 350,000 
acres of land for the establishment and maintenance of agri- 
cultural schools within the State/ Congress took no action 
upon the petition. 

During the next few years the general interest in the sub- 
ject increased. At every session of Congress memorials, 
resolutions, and petitions were received from individuals, 
from Boards of Agriculture, from Farmers' Conventions, and 
from State Legislatures asking for the national endowment 
of agricultural schools in each of the States. For several 
3^ears these memorials received no attention, and there was 
an evident disinclination, even on the part of those members 
of the National Legislature who were friendly to the project, 
to urge its consideration. The reason for this is not far to 
seek. In 1854 President Pierce had vetoed a bill granting a 
large amount of land to the States for the establishment of 
asylums for the care of the indigent insane. The reasons 
given for the veto were that the care of the insane was 
a State matter, and that a grant of lands for such a purpose 
was unconstitutional.^ Passages in the veto message made 
it certain that the President would also veto any measure 
which might come before him for the appropriation of lands 
for educational purposes. The friends of the project, there- 
fore, allowed it to slumber during his administration. 

In 1857 James Buchanan became President, and in the first 
session after his inauguration a bill was introduced in the 
House of Representatives ' to grant to each State in the 
Union, for the maintenance of agricultural schools, a quantity 
of land equal to twenty thousand acres for each senator and 
representative in Congress to which the State was entitled. 
In any State where there were public lands, the lands granted 
to that State were to be selected therefrom ; to every State 
in which the public lands did not equal the proposed grant, 
land scrip was to be issued to make up the deficiency. This 

'^ Mich. Laws, 1850, 462. "Senate Jour., 33d Cong., ist Session, 363-369, 
' Globe, 35tli Cong., ist Session, 32. 



24 Land Grants for Education in the [96 

the State must sell, not being permitted, for reasons of State 
policy, to locate the scrip upon lands in any other State/ 
The bill further required that the proceeds of the land or 
scrip should be invested in " safe stocks," yielding at least 
five per cent, interest ; that no part should be used for 
buildings, and that only the income of the fund should be 
used by the schools or colleges for any purpose. Finally,, 
any State to obtain the benefit of this grant must establish 
within five years at least one college " where the leading 
object should be, without excluding other scientific and 
classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as are 
related to agriculture and the micchanic arts." ^ 

The members of the committee to whom the bill was re- 
ferred did not agree in their opinions. The majority held 
that the bill was unwise and unconstitutional, and that 
" without a promise of pecuniary compensation Congress 
has no power to grant portions of the public domain ; and 
if it had, no policy could be more unwise than to grant it for 
the support of local institutions within the States." ^ The 
minority favored the bill, arguing that the proposed grant was 
desirable and constitutional, since Congress had full power 
to dispose of the public domain as seemed wise to her. * 

The reports thus disagreed concerning both the advisa- 
bility and constitutionahty of the measure. The struggle, 
begun in the committee, was renewed in Congress. In the 
long and hotly contested debate which ensued, it was urged,,, 
on the one side, that the object of the bill was good ; that 
the interests of agriculture deserved and needed encourage- 
ment ; that these interests formed a proper object of Con- 
gressional care ; ^ that Congress had already made numerous: 

' The assignees and purchasers of the scrip could of course locate it upon any 
public lands in the United States. 

^ Ibid., 1697. 

^ Document E, 1-5. The ground taken in the report was precisely that 
occupied by President Pierce in the veto message of 1854, and the line of argu- 
ment in the two was identical. Mr. Cobb, the chairman, acknowledged that 
his own views were based upon the arguments of that message, and that pre- 
viously he had held a different theory of the powers of Congress over the public, 
lands. — Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Session. 1742. 

* Document E, 6-14. * Globe, 35th Cong., ist Session, 1741. 



97] ■ Northwest Territory. 25 

grants for school and higher educational institutions ; and 
that the Constitution gave the United States authority to 
make this and similar donations, since it armed Congress 
with power "to dispose of and make all needful regulations 
concerning the territory belonging to the United States." ' 

The opponents of the measure were nearly all from the 
Southern States. They were actuated by little hostility to 
agricultural and technical education, but few of them deny- 
ing that the proposed colleges would be a benefit to the 
nation. Their opposition emanated from the ultra State- 
sovereignty spirit then prevalent in the south, and was based 
almost solely on constitutional grounds. They claimed that 
the bill attempted " to establish a new theory in the disposi- 
tion of public lands and the relations of the government 
towards the States " ; ^ that " it was just as much a viola- 
tion of the duty of Congress to invade the province of 
the State governments under the head of donations as it 
would be to invade it by force and violence " ; ^ that while 
Congress had power to dispose of the public lands for a con- 
sideration, it could not give them away ^ *' without violating 
the beneficiaries' rights." ^ 

In the face of so many precedents in favor of the grant, the 
objection on constitutional grounds lacked force, and the 
question in the minds of a large majority of Congress was 
entirely one of expediency. The bill passed Congress in 
February, 1859,° with slight amendments. The most im- 
portant of these was that the distribution of the lands 
should be on the basis of the apportionment to be made in 
i860. President Buchanan refused his assent to the bill. 
Basing his veto on the arguments used in Congress by its 
opponents, he held that it was unconstitutional, and that it 

' Ibid.; also Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Session, 721. See Constitution, Article 
iv., Sec. 3. 

' Ibid., 187. * Ibid., 715. * Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Session, 1741. 

^ Mr. Bayard covered the whole constitutional ground of the opposition when 
he stated that the bill was ' ' in violation of the Constitution under a general 
grant of the power of disposing of the public lands by appropriating them for 
purposes not within the jurisdiction of Congress." — Globe, 35th Congress, 2d 
Session, 7S5. 

° Senate Journal, 35th Cong., 2d Session, 278 ; House Journal, 428. 



-. 26 Land Grants for Education in the [98 

proposed an impolitic and unwise intermingling of state and 
national instrumentalities.* The friends of the measure 
were unable to pass it over the veto. 

Petitions and memorials in favor of the grant poured in 
upon the next Congress in great numbers, and the project 
was again brought forward. The certainty that it would be 
vetoed, and the fact that the attention of Congress was 
drawn toward the impending troubles in the south, pre- 
vented its consideration. In the Thirty- seventh Congress a 
bill was introduced which was essentially a copy of the 
original measure of 1857, except that it granted 30,000 acres 
instead of 20,000, for each member of Congress. The de- 
bates which ensued developed no new features. Little op- 
position was offered on any grounds. Its opponents of 
1858 were largely engaged in 1862 in battling on other than 
Congressional fields. The bill was passed, and was approved 
hy President Lincoln on the second of July, 1863.^ Its 
general provisions have already been stated.^ By one clause 
no State while in rebellion was to receive the benefit of the 
act, but since 1865 all the Southern States have availed them- 
selves of its provisions. Every State in the Union has estab- 
lished a college and received its quota of land or scrip.* 

This grant is the last donation made by Congress for edu- 
cational purposes. Various unsuccessful attempts have since 
been made to increase the grant made in 1863. Several 
petitions for an increased endowment of the common schools 
have also been laid before Congress. In 1872, the House of 
Representatives passed a bill granting to the States and 
Territories the net proceeds " arising from the sale, entry, loca- 
tion, or other disposition " of the public lands of the United 
States, " for the maintenance of common schools for the free 
education of all the children in the United States." '" This com- 
prehensive measure which would have devoted the whole 
public domain to educational purposes, contained many ob- 
jectionable features. The method of distribution provided 

^ House Journal, 35th Cong., 2d Session, 501-508. ^ 12 U. S. Stat., 503. 

^ Supra, 23. ^ Document A, 230. 

'House Journal, 42d Cong., 2d Session, 293, 294, 308. 



99] NortJizvcst Territory. 27 

in the bill tended to centralize in the national government 
a species of control over education, which is repugnant to 
the true spirit of State independence in domestic affairs. 
The Senate did not pass the measure. 

The recent propositions to aid the States in educational 
matters by an appropriation of money, are based upon the 
same theory, and are open to the same criticisms as the bill 
of 1872. Inasmuch as they do not propose an appropriation 
of lands or their proceeds, the history of these measures lies 
outside the field covered in this sketch. 

B. — LEGISLATION AFFECTING INDIVIDUAL STATES. 

The school and seminary lands, reserved from sale by the 
general laws, remained under the control of Congress during 
the existence of the territorial government in the northwest. 
Whenever a State was carved out of the territory and ad- 
mitted into the Union, the control over the educational 
reservations was transferred to the new State. This control 
was not absolute, however, but was limited by various con- 
ditions and restrictions, which were not the same in all cases. 
Subsequent laws pertaining to educational lands in indi- 
vidual States have also been adopted by Congress. Finally, 
special grants have been made to various educational in- 
stitutions in the northwest. This special legislation natural- 
ly separates itself into five groups, corresponding to the five 
States formed from the original territory. 

{a) OHIO. 

By the ordinance of 1787 provision was made for the 
eventual division of the Northwest Territory into not more 
than five States, each of which should be eligible to admis- 
sion into the Union when it should have attained a popula- 
tion of sixty thousand. In 1802, the eastern division of the 
territory applied for admission. In April of that year a law 
was passed to enable the people to form a constitution and 
State government.' By one section of the act several con- 

' 2 U. 3. Stat., 173. 



28 Land Grants for Education in the [lOO. 

ditional propositions were submitted for the acceptance or 
rejection of the convention which should be called to frame 
a State constitution. These propositions and the attendant 
conditions were : 

"First. That the section number sixteen in every town- 
ship * * * shall be granted to the people of such township 
for the use of schools. 

" Second. That * * * [certain] salt-springs, with the 
sections of land which include the same, shall be granted 
to the said State for the use of the people thereof, * * *- 
Provided, That the Legislature shall never sell nor lease the 
same for a longer period than ten years. 

" Third. [One twentieth of the net proceeds of the sales of 
public lands in the State, granted for building roads.] 

" Provided always, That the three foregoing propositions 
are on the condition, that the convention of the said State 
shall provide by ordinance, irrevocable without the consent . 
of the United States, that every tract of land sold by Con- 
gress, from and after the thirtieth day of June next, shall 
be exempt from any tax laid by order or under authority of 
the State, * * * for the term of five years from and after 
the sale." 

The compact in the ordinance of 1787 had provided that 
the States to be formed from the territory should never in- 
terfere with the primary disposal of the soil, and should levy 
no tax on the property of the United States.^ In 1802 the 
government was selling public lands on five years' credit, 
and the patent was not issued until the final payment was 
made.^ The Secretary of the Treasury held that under the 
ordinance of 1787 the lands could not be taxed until the 
patent issued, because till that time they were the property^ 
of the United States.^ The conditions contained in the 

^ ' ' The Legislatures of those districts or new States shall never interfere with 
the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, 
nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in 
such soil to the bona-Jide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the 
property of the United States." — Ordinance, Art. v. ; Poore, 432. 

"2 U. S. Stat., 73. 

* " An attempt on the part of the Legislature of the territory or new State ta 



lOi] Northwest Territory. 29 

propositions of Congress in 1802 were tlierefore but a more 
explicit statement of certain agreements of the ordinance of 
1787, which were already obligatory upon the whole territory, 
and irrevocable without the consent of the United States/ 
Had the condition been omitted from the law of 1802, the 
State of Ohio would not have been able to tax the lands one 
moment sooner, so long as the existing system of selling the 
lands was continued. 

But why did Congress impose such a condition in 1802, 
if nothing new was gained thereby ? Why was it made to 
appear that these grants were offered in return for a conces- 
sion, by the State, of privileges which, in reality, it had never 
possessed ? Why was the law so framed as to conceal the 
munificence of the United States, and make the whole affair 
appear a mere bargain ? The histoiy of the measure in its 
various stages in Congress affords an answer, and throws 
a clear light upon the origin of this so-called contract, which 
was misinterpreted by a later generation of legislators and 
presidents, searching for constitutional arguments against 
the power to grant lands for any object "without a compen- 
sation therefor." ^ 

In the committee of Congress to whom the duty of draft- 
ing a bill for the admission of Ohio was referred, there was 
manifested a desire to shield the public lands from all possible 
encroachments by the new State, and to ofTer to immigrants 
still stronger attractions than already existed. It occurred 
or was suggested to this committee that the exemption of 
these lands from State taxation for some years after the first 
purchaser had acquired the title to them would be one of 
the strongest possible inducements. It was conceded, how- 
ever, that the United States could not, without the consent 
of the State, impose other limitations on the latter's power 

render lands, sold under the laws of Congress, but for which no patent has yet 
issued, liable to be sold for non-payment of taxes, would interfere .with the 
regulations adopted by Congress for the ' primary disposal of the soil. ' . . . 
The district or State Legislature has not a right to tax, or at least to sell for 
non-payment of taxes, the lands on which, though conditionally sold, the. 
United States still retains a lien." — State Papers, i Miscellaneous, 327. 
' Campbell, 451. " Supra, 24, 25. 



30 Land Grants for Education in the [102 

of taxation than those made in the ordinance of 1787/ In 
this dilemma the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Gallatin, 
suggested that certain grants be offered as an inducement 
to the State to make the desired concession regarding 
taxation.^ Acting on his suggestion the committee, in 
its draft of the resolutions or bill, proposed that the three 
grants be offered to the State, on condition that " every and 
each tract of land should be exempt from taxation for the 
period of ten years from and after the completion of the pay- 
ment of the purchase money on such tract to the United 
States." = 

This condition and exemption was far broader than that 
made in 1787. It would have relieved the land from taxation 
for fifteen years after its sale and ten years after the govern- 
ment had ceased to have any title in the property sold. 
When the bill came before Congress for final consideration, 
it was so amended as to make this clause * simply a repe- 
tition, in more definite terms, of the existing restrictions. 
At the same time the form of the contract was retained, 

1 In a letter to the chairman of the committee, Mr. Gallatin says : "It does 
not appear to me that the United States have a right to annex new conditions, 
not implied in the articles of compact, limiting the legislative i-ight of taxation 
of the territory or new State. Indeed, the United States have no greater right 
to annex new limitations than the individual State may have to infringe those 
of the original compact." Annals, 7th Cong., ist Session, iioo, iioi. State 
Papers, i Miscellaneous, 327. 

" " If it be in a high degree, as I believe it is, the interest of the United 
States to obtain some further security against an injurious sale, under Territorial 
or State laws, of lands sold by them to individuals ; justice not less than policy 
requires that it should be obtained by common consent, and as it is not to be 
expected that the new State Legislature should assent to any alterations in their 
system of taxation which may affect the revenues of the State, unless an equiva- 
lent is offered which it may be their interest to accept, I would submit the 
propriety of inserting in the act of admission a clause or clauses to that effect, 
leaving it altogether optional in the State convention or Legislature to accept or 
reject the same. The equivalent to be offered must be such as shall * * * be 
fully acceptable to the State, and at the same time prove generally beneficial 
either in a political or commercial view to the Union at large." He then sug- 
gests the propositions in the form in which they were subsequently reported to 
■Congress by the committee. — Ibid. 

^ State Papers, i Miscellaneous, 326. 

"" Supra, 28 and Note i. 



103] Northwest Territory. 31 

though by the amendment it was made valueless, and all 
necessity for its retention removed. Had the terms pro- 
posed in the original bill been adopted by Congress and 
accepted by the State, the contract would have involved a 
new and valuable consideration on each side. As it stands, 
only by ignoring the ordinance of 1787 can it be said that 
the grants of 1802 were made " only upon conditions which 
more than indemnified the United States." * 

When the constitutional convention of Ohio came to con- 
sider these propositions, several objections were offered to 
them. As already stated, the lands in the Connecticut Re- 
serye and the Virginia Military Reservation were on a dif- 
ferent basis of proprietorship from the other land in the 
territory.^ The laws reserving the sixteenth section for 
school purposes had not applied to these tracts, nor did 
the grant now proposed extend to them. The Indians also 
possessed many lands in the State, and no provision had 
been made for a grant for schools in such tracts, when the 
United States should have extinguished the Indian claims. 
These points did not escape the notice of the convention. 

The propositions were finally accepted on condition that 
Congress should make provision for schools in the Connec- 
ticut Reserve, the Virginia Military Reservation, and the 
United States Military District,^ by granting an amount of 
land equal to one thirty-sixth of the territory of these districts ; 
that a like proportion should be granted of any lands in the 
State subsequently acquired from the Indians ; that these 
lands and those already offered by Congress should be vested 
ill the State for the use of the schools in each township or 
district, and, lastly, that Congress should grant one town- 

^ This view is further substantiated by the fact that after the abandonment of 
credit sales by the government, all States upon admission to the Union, while 
receiving similar grants, were permitted to tax public lands as soon as they were 
sold. — Pillsbury, cxxii. Further still, in 1847, the States which, upon their 
admission, had agreed to the five years' exemption, were permitted thereafter 
to tax lands immediately after the sale. — 9 U. S. Stat., 118. 

* Supra, 9, Notes 5 and 6. 

^ This was a large tract appropriated by Congress in 1796 to satisfy land 
bounties granted by the United States to soldiers of the army of the Revolu- 
tion. — I U. S. Stat., 490. 



32 Land Grants for Education in the [104 

ship for a seminary in lieu of the one mentioned in the con- 
tract with Symmes, which, for some reason, had never been 
set apart. ^ 

When this decision was made known to Congress, the 
committee appointed to consider the demands, ignoring all 
questions of indemnity and contracts, took its stand on the 
broad principle that the reservation of one thirty-sixth of 
the lands for the use of schools, as established by the ordi- 
nance of 1785, was equally liberal and wise ; that to this 
principle it was " a sound policy to adhere and to extend it 
wherever practicable." ^ The views of Congress agreed 
with those of the committee, and the desired appropriations 
were made from public lands in the State.^ 

In the discussion of this measure the right to appropriate 
lands for educational purposes in the States was called in 
question for the first time in Congressional debates. Those 
who denied the right called attention to the fact that, by the 
terms of the Virginia cession, the public domain must be 
disposed of for the common benefit of the States. They as- 
serted that to donate to one State a portion of the lands was 
to benefit the people in one part of the country at the ex- 

' State Papers, i Miscellaneous, 343. 21 Ohio Laws, 44. 

" The following is from the report of the committee : ' ' The ordinance 
passed by Congress on the 20th day of May, 1785, established the principle of 
reserving one thirty-sixth part of the lands sold for the use of schools. To 
this principle, equally liberal and wise, your committee believe it a sound 
policy to adhere and to extend it wherever practicable. They are aware of the 
objection that the right of soil in the tract of country commonly called the 
Connecticut Reserve, having been ceded by Congress without any valuable con- 
sideration, and no reservation having been made for the support of schools 
therein, the inhabitants of that portion of the State of Ohio have not equal 
claims on the bounty of Congress with those who, having purchased their lands 
of the United States, have contributed large sums to the public treasury. * * * 
But when it is considered that the provision for schools embraces not the emolu- 
ment of individuals, but the interests of morality and learning, the committee 
are of opinion that Congress will perceive the propriety of acceding to a 
proposition, the tendency of which is to cherish and confirm our present happy 
political institutions and habits. This last consideration applies equally to the 
United States military tract, to the military reservation of Virginia, and to 
lands which may hereafter be acquired from the Indian tribes." — State Papers, 
I Miscellaneous, 340, 341, 

= 2 U. S. Stat., 225. 



105] Northwest Territory. 33 

pense of the rest ; hence it was plainly an act of usurpation, 
in violation of the cession and unwarranted by the Constitu- 
tion.' The advocates of the grant did not claim that the mere 
advancement of education in a particular State was a bene- 
fit to the other States. The day had not yet arrived when 
education was considered a part of the " general welfare," 
for which Congress may provide. The bill was defended on 
the ground that the donation would enhance the value of 
adjacent lands and attract settlers ; that the remaining lands 
would afford a greater revenue because of the donation than 
the whole of them with no provision for education ; and that 
for this reason the appropriation was a direct benefit to the 
whole Union.'' 

The grant made for the Virginia Military Reservation was 
subsequently found to be in such form as to make it un- 
available for many years, and in 1807, in response to a peti- 
tion from the General Assembly of Ohio,^ a second and more 
specific appropriation was made in lieu of the former grant." 
In 1805 the Indians relinquished their claims upon that por- 
tion of the Connecticut Reserve which they had hitherto 
occupied. It was not until 1834 that Congress, after numer- 
ous petitions from the General Assembly, granted to the 
State an amount of land equal to one thirty-sixth of the area 

' " With what face of justice can we then put our hands into this common 
fund, or lay hold of any portion of these lands and apply them to the use and 
benefit of the people of one part of the country, to the entire exclusion of all 
the rest, as is contemplated by this bill? What authority have we to give the 
people of Ohio land equal to a thirty-sixth part of their whole State ? It 
appeared to him an assumption of power which did not of right belong to them. 
It was an act of usurpation which he had not been able to discover any princi- 
ple whatever to warrant or justify." — Annals of Congress, 7th Cong., 2d Ses- 
sion, 585. 

" " While it [the proposed grant] protected the interests of literature it would 
enhance the value of property. Can we suppose that emigration will not be 
promoted by it, and that the value of lands will not be enhanced by the emigrant 
obtaining the fullest education for his children ; and is it not better to receive 
two dollars an acre with an appropriation than seventy-five cents without such 
an appropriation ? The gentleman is averse to a proposition which gives up 
nothing, but which will necessarily enhance the value of public property." — 
Ibid., 586, 587. 

' 5 Ohio Laws, 132. " 2 U. S. Stat., 424. 



34 Land Grants for Education in the [io6 

of this tract/ This, with a small amount given in 1824,'' 
completed the quota of school lands promised in 1802. 

In 1824 the General Assembly petitioned Congress for 
leave to sell the thirty-eight sections of salt-spring or saHne 
lands ^ and to apply the proceeds to literary purposes. At 
the following session of Congress the sale of these lands 
was authorized, "the proceeds thereof to be applied to 
such literary purposes as the said Legislature may hereafter 
direct, and to no other use, intent, or purpose whatsoever." * 
Finally, in 1871, all the unsold portions of the Virginia 
Military Reservation v/ere granted to the State ^ and given 
by the latter to the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical 
College. 

In addition to these bountiful donations, the State at 
various times sought gifts for special educational purposes. 
The Legislature petitioned Congress in 1828 for a township 
of land for the education of the deaf and dumb,° and for a 
grant to Kenyon College,'' and in 1834 for an appropriation 
of " a part of the proceeds of the national domain for pur- 
poses of education." ® These and other petitions of a kindred 
nature received various degrees of attention in Congress, but 
all of them failed in their object. 

The journals of Congress, from 1820 to i860, are dotted 
with records of rriemorials, from nearly all the States, seek- 
ing grants for educational projects. Did a State desire to 
increase its school facilities, or start a new college, or assist 
an old one, the national government was immediately asked 
for land to further the accomplishment of the desire. Con- 
gress, having dealt liberally and impartially with each State 
at the time of its admission, has wisely refused to expend 
the public domain upon miscellaneous educational schemes, 
which ought to be supported by State resources. In a few 
instances only, has this policy been departed from, and then 
for special and valid reasons. 

' 4 U. S. Stat., 679. " 16 U. S. Stat., 416. 

'4 U. S, Stat., 56. ' State Papers, 4 Public Lands, 889. 

^ Supra, 28. '^26 Ohio Laws, Local, 174. 

*4 U. S. Stat., 79. ^ State Papers, 6 Public Lands, 969. 



I07] Northwest Territory. 35 

{b) INDIANA. 

In 1805 the Detroit land district * became the Territory of 
Michigan." Four years later the Kaskaskia land district, con- 
taining essentially the territory now embraced in the States 
of Illinois and Wisconsin, was reorganized as the Territory 
of Illinois.' The Territory of Indiana, thus reduced in size, 
continued under its territorial government until 1816, when 
the inhabitants petitioned Congress for its admission as a 
State. Congress passed an act for its admission * wherein 
propositions similar to those made in the case of Ohio were 
offered to the constitutional convention upon the same con- 
ditions. There was, however, this important addition : 
" That one entire township, which shall be designated by 
the President of the United States, in addition to the one 
heretofore reserved for that purpose,^ shall be reserved for 
the use of a seminary of learning and vested in the Legis- 
lature of the said State, to be appropriated solely for the 
use of such seminary by the said Legislature." The school 
lands were to be granted not to the State but to the 
people of each township. Thirty-six sections of saline lands 
were given instead of thirty-eight as in the case of Ohio. 
These propositions were accepted by the convention without 
modification. 

In 1832 the Legislature was at its own request^ authorized 
to sell the saline lands at a price not less than that of public 
lands, the proceeds to be applied to the purposes of educa- 
tion.'' In 1852 this limitation on the price was removed.' 

The title to a portion of the seminary lands granted to 
the State became the subject of litigation, in 1844, between 
two educational institutions, each of which claimed the lands 
under authority of acts of the Legislature. In 1854, after the 
case had been decided in the courts, the United States, in 
response to petitions from the defeated claimant and the 
legislature, granted an additional amount of land equal to 
that involved in the litigation.® This was certainly a gift 

1 Supra, 18. " 3 U. S. Stat., 289. ^ 4 U. S. Stat., 558. 

'2 U. S. Stat., 309. " Supra, \'&. ' 10 U. S. Stat., 15. 

^ Ibid.,S'i.4,. ® Indiana Laws, 1827, 103. ° 10 U. S. Stat., 267,. 



o 



6 Land Grants for Education in the [io8 



" without any compensation." The seminary townships had 
both been devoted to the use of colleges, and as it was 
neither contrary to the terms of the grant that the proceeds 
were divided by the Legislature between two institutions, 
nor through any neglect or fault of Congress that the double 
claim to them had arisen, no obligation rested on Congress 
to make restitution for an unfortunate blunder of the State 
authorities. In 1873 Congress granted to Vincennes Uni- 
versity all vacant and unclaimed lands in Knox County, 
Indiana.^ 

{c) ILLINOIS. 

When the people of the Territory of Illinois applied for 
■ admission into the Union in 18 18, the grants made to her 
for educational and other purposes, though based upon the 
usual conditions, differed from previous grants in two 
important features. The school sections and the saline lands 
were granted to the State on the same terms as in the case 
of Ohio. Instead, however, of granting five per cent, of the 
proceeds of public lands for building roads, as had always 
been done in previous cases, the act set apart two per cent, 
for that purpose and three per cent. " to-be appropriated by 
the Legislature of the State for the encouragement of learn- 
ing, of which one sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on 
a college or university." ° This new feature, which prom- 
ised a large additional fund for education, was introduced at 
the instance of the delegate in Congress from the Territory 
of Illinois.^ He supported it on the ground that in other 
.States the fund for building roads had been used in such 
■ways as to produce little benefit ; and that the soil of the 
proposed State was such as to afford her with little labor 
" the finest roads in the world." He then showed that to 
devote a portion of the five per cent, to the education of the 
people would confer the greatest possible benefit upon the 
people of the new State, because this fund would afford an 
immediate income while the educational lands were still 
lying unproductive. * However one may be disposed to 

' 17 U. S. Stat., 614. ^ Annals, 15th Cong., ist Session, 1677. 

' 3 U. S. Stat., 428. ^ Ibid., 1678. 



109] Northwest Territory. 37 

question his statement concerning the roads in Illinois, it 
is true that the proposition to devote the proceeds to educa- 
tion had much in its favor. This novel and important 
amendment was unanimously adopted. 

While two townships were granted for higher education, 
the appropriation was made in such terms as to permit the 
State to select at least one half of the lands in small tracts 
wherever a choice piece might be found. The older States 
had been compelled to locate each township as a single 
tract. As it is rare that all the land in any one township is 
valuable, the result was that Illinois obtained much better 
lands for higher education than could have been selected 
under the old requirement. The saline lands in Illinois, 
though subsequently sold, were not used for purposes of 
education. 

{d) MICHIGAN. 

In 1835 the Territory of Michigan held a convention and 
framed a State constitution. This constitution was adopted 
and the machinery of State government set in motion after 
application to Congress for admission into the Union, but 
before Congress had acted upon the application. The action 
of the territory was denounced by many members of Con- 
gress, who regarded the consent or authority of the United 
States as an essential preliminary step in the formation of a 
State government. The justification of the action of Michi- 
gan was found in the organic law of the territory. The 
ordinance of 1787 provided tha.t the States formed from the 
Northwest Territory should be admitted upon the attain- 
ment of sixty thousand inhabitants. The population of 
Michigan exceeded that number. That she could not be 
admitted as a State without the action of Congress may have 
been true. That she had the right to frame a constitution 
and prepare for admission without the consent of Congress 
was a proper interpretation of the ordinance. The " irregu- 
lar" proceedings of Michigan were used in Congress as a 
cloak to cover other deep-seated objections to her immediate 
admission as a State. These are not, however, germane to 
the present subject. 



38 Land Grants for Education i7t the [no 

A dispute as to the boundary line between Michigan and 
Ohio also introduced a disturbing element into the question. 
At length an act was passed for the admission of the new 
State on the acceptance by a convention of the people of 
certain boundary lines on the south, in return for which a 
large tract between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior was 
to be attached to Michigan/ So little were the mineral 
resources of the Lake Superior region known at that time,, 
that the first convention rejected the propositions, thinking 
a tract a few miles in width along the southern border of 
more value to the State than the wilderness of the upper 
peninsula, A second convention, called and held without 
any legal authority,^ accepted the conditions. Congress, as- 
suming that this convention was a legally organized body, 
admitted the State in 1837, 

The ill feeling engendered in Congress by these disputes 
militated against the desires of the people of the State con- 
cerning education. The convention which framed the con- 
stitution in 1835, reversing the usual order of things,, 
adopted an ordinance submitting several propositions to 
Congress for their approval or rejection.^ Of the proposi- 
tions touching educational matters the first provided that the 
sections number sixteen should be granted " to the State 'for 
the use of schools." This seemingly slight change from the 
usual terms* was made designedly and was of great import- 
ance. In the other three States the funds arising from each 
school section were required to be kept separate. While 
some townships had accumulated large funds, others, owing 
to poor lands or mismanagement of the proceeds, had little or 
nothing. By the proposed change the proceeds of all school 
lands in Michigan would be consolidated into one State 
school-fund. This could be more easily, safely, and economi- 

^ 5 U. S. Stat., 49. * Campbell, 477, 478. 

^Journal, Mich. Constitutional Convention, 1835, 219, 220. 

* In the case of Illinois the law provided " that section number sixteen in 
every township shall be granted to the State for the use of the inhabitants of 
such towftship for the use of schools." — 3 U. S. Stat., 428. In Indiana each 
school section had been granted directly to the people of the township in which 
it lay.— 3 U. S. Stat., 289. 



Ill] Northwest Territory. 39 

cally managed, while the income would be distributed pro 
rata to all parts of the State, thus insuring uniformity and 
equality in school facilities. 

The second proposition secured the seventy-two sections 
or two townships of university lands to the State. The 
saline lands were to be granted to the State, unconditionally, 
and the usual five per cent, of the proceeds of public lands 
was to be distributed essentially as in Illinois — two per cent, 
for building roads, and three per cent. " to the encourage- 
ment of education." ' Should Congress make these and other 
specified gifts, the State agreed to exempt public lands from 
taxation. Since the United States had ceased selling lands 
on credit, and the necessity and object of the exemption 
for five years no longer existed, the State, while conforming 
to the compact of 1787, omitted the usual clause providing 
such exemption.'^ 

These propositions were rejected by Congress. Some of 
their features, however, were embodied in a series of 
propositions, afterward submitted by Congress to the State 
Legislature,^ and accepted by the latter.^ In this way the 
State succeeded in obtaining some of the desired modifica- 
tions in the usual educational endowment provided for new 
States. The school lands were granted directly to the State 
as had been desired. The grant of the saline lands was 
limited to the power to lease them.^ The five-per-cent. fund 
was to be used wholly for internal improvements, in obedi- 
ence to older precedents, thus leaving Illinois as the only 
State, up to that time, in which a portion of the five-per- 
cent, fund was devoted to educational objects. 

The conditions on which these grants rested were the 
same as those offered by the propositions of the constitu- 
tional convention — the State was to agree not to tax public 
lands, nor interfere with the primary disposal of the soil.* 

' Journal, Const. Conven., 1835, 220. ^ 5 U. S. Stat., 59. 

^ Ibid. * Mich. Laws, 1835-6, 57. 

* In 1847 permission was given to the State to sell these lands (9 U. S. Stat., 
181), the State Legislature having represented to Congress that the lands "in 
their present form are unavailable and unproductive for the objects intended by 
■the grant." — Mich. Laws, 1845, 154. 

' This is almost the identical language of the ordinance of 1787. 



40 Land Grmits for Edtccation in the [112 

This last innovation was strenuously opposed in Congress, 
where it was immediately perceived that it destroyed the 
quid pro quo appearance of the contract, on which many had 
become accustomed to lay stress in developing their theories 
of the powers of Congress under the Constitution. The 
change did operate to the advantage of Michigan as com- 
pared with Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (and all other States 
admitted after 1802), but in the principle there was no change. 
Now as before the requirem.ent was that public lands should 
not be taxed until the title had passed to individuals — until 
they had ceased to be public lands. The change in the 
system of selling lands produced the corresponding change 
in the form of these conditions. The new features of the 
propositions submitted at the admission of Michigan, have 
been used in the case of all States admitted since. 

{/) WISCONSIN. 

In 1836 the region now embraced in Wisconsin was de- 
tached from Michigan,' and formed into a separate territory.'' 
In the laws reserving seminary townships for the Northwest 
Territory ^ the creation of a fifth State seems not to have 
been contemplated and no reservation was made for it. In 
1838, however, on application of the territory, seventy-two 
sections or two townships were set apart for the use and 
support of a university within the territory.* When the 
territory applied for admission as a State in 1846 the usual 
propositions were offered to the constitutional convention.^ 
In this convention the subject of education received special 
and unusual attention. The constitution which was framed 
by the convention provided that all lands granted to the 
State for educational purposes (except the university lands), 
all grants whose purpose was not specified, the five hundred 
thousand acres for the promotion of internal improvements, 
to which the State was entitled under a previous law, and 

^ Until 18 1 8 it had formed a part of Illinois, but was detached therefrom and 
joined to Michigan, when Illinois became a State. 

* 5 U. S. Stat., 10. * 5 U. S. Stat., 244. 

' Supra, 18. * 9 U. S. Stat., 56, 



113] Northwest Territory. 41. 

the five per cent, of the proceeds of the public lands should 
form a permanent school fund.' This proposed use of 
the internal-improvement lands and the five-per-cent. fund, 
differed from that designated by Congress. The change 
proposed by the State could become operative only with the 
consent of the United States. The experience of Michigan 
showed the difficulties in obtaining the favorable action of 
Congress in such matters. However, the convention urged 
upon the National Legislature the advantages likely to 
result from the change. In 1848 Congress consented to the 
provisions of the constitution.* Wisconsin thus started out 
with a school endowment far greater in proportion to the 
area of the State than that of any of its older sisters. Had 
the wisdom and care subsequently shown in managing the 
grant been equal to the zeal displayed in obtaining it, the 
State would to-day be surpassed by no other in the amount 
of its educational funds. 

The seventy-two sections of salt-spring lands included in 
these grants were never selected. In their stead Congress, 
in 1854, authorized the selection of an equal amount from 
any public lands in the State "for the benefit and aid of the 
State University." ' This provision doubled the land en- 
dowment of the State University, which had received the 
benefit of the original seminary funds. 

1 Constitution, Art. X,, Sec. 2, * 9 U. S. Stat., 233. ' 10 U. S. Stat., 597. 



PART II. 

STATE LEGISLATION AND MANAGEMENT OF 
THE GRANTS. 

A. — SCHOOL AND SWAMP LANDS. 

In investigating the history of the management by the 
States of the various grants for schools, a study of the 
territory as a whole would present but a confused and 
unsatisfactory view of the subject. In one State the lands 
have been managed by local officers in the different town- 
ships, in another they have been controlled by one central 
authority, while in others they have been subject to the 
joint control of State and local officers. Again, in some 
States the policy of leasing prevailed in the earlier days, 
while in others sales were ordered at the outset. Still further, 
different theories as to the investment of the resulting funds 
have obtained in different States. For these reasons a sepa- 
rate examination of the policy and legislation of each State 
becomes necessary. 

{a) OHIO. 

The sixteenth sections were not formally given to Ohio 
until her admission as a State, and until then no steps were 
taken to utilize them for school purposes. The territorial 
authorities, however, seem to have exercised a supervisory 
control over the reserved tracts, for in 1799 a measure was 
adopted " to prevent the committing of waste " on the 
school lands.' 

^ Education in Ohio, 13. 
[114] 42 



1 1 5] Northwest Territory. 43 

As Ohio was the first State coming into possession of an 
extensive land endowment for education, she could look to 
no older State for ideas concerning its management. By the 
terms of the grant, in whatever way the lands were disposed 
of, only the income arising from them could be expended. 
The fund itself, whether kept in lands or turned into money, 
must remain intact forever. The constitution adopted in 
1802 gave no directions for the management of this valuable 
trust. The task of devising a method of guarding and 
utilizing it was thrown upon the Legislature. In those early 
days the opinion seems to have been unanimous that educa- 
tional interests would be best promoted by leasing the lands 
and applying the rents to the maintenance of schools. 
Abstractly considered, this policy rests upon a solid founda- 
tion. So long as public lands are abundant in a State — and 
they always are in a new State — it would be vain to expect 
that men will pay a higher price for school lands than is 
demanded by the United States for lands of the same 
quality, unless more favorable terms of payment are offered 
for the former. If, however, they can be leased until the 
best pubhc lands have been sold, this dif^culty is avoided. 
They can then be thrown upon the market at higher prices, 
and thus produce a larger permanent fund. While the 
State is sparsely settled, fewer schools are needed, and the 
annual rents from the leased property afford some revenue for 
that purpose. In this method there are, however, certain 
practical dif^culties to which attention will be called in sub- 
sequent pages. 

The first General Assembly of Ohio, in April, 1803, ordered 
the school lands to be leased for periods varying from seven 
to fifteen years.^ The object of the act was not an immedi- 
ate income, but, as the law itself declared, the improvement 
of the land, in order to make it productive of revenue in the 
future. The rent was not to be paid in money but by clear- 
ing a certain number of acres and planting trees. The 
business of leasing was entrusted to agents in the various 
counties and districts. The applicant who offered to make 

' I Ohio Laws, 61. 



44 La7id Grants for Education in the [ii6 

the improvements on a piece of land in the shortest time was 
to be given the lease. Comparatively few tracts were rented 
under this law. The long credit then given by the national 
government to purchasers of public lands placed them within 
the reach of many who would have been unable to make 
full payment at the time of purchase.^ This fact operated 
against the tenant system until Congress adopted the cash 
policy in its sales. 

In 1805, leases for a money rent were authorized. These 
were at first confined to the sixteenth sections.^ The town- 
ship trustees were vested with the power to lease these for 
not more than fifteen years, " to those who made the most 
advantageous proposals." The rent was to be " impartially 
applied to the education of the youths " in the township 
where the leased land was situated.^ By the land laws of 
the United States the western territory was laid off into 
townships of a fixed size. When for civil purposes Ohio was 
divided into counties and the counties sub-divided into town- 
ships, it frequently happened that the boundaries of these 
civil townships did not coincide with those of the surveyed 
townships of six miles square. Section sixteen had been 
granted for the benefit of the inhabitants of each original 
surveyed township. In 1806 these latter townships were 
incorporated with power to elect three trustees and a 
treasurer " for the purpose of leasing and managing " the 
school lands on the terms prescribed in the previous law.* 
For several years these general provisions for the sixteenth 
sections remained unchanged. Many lands were leased, and 

^Governor Tiffin said, in 1804 : " But few of the school sections are yet 
leased, and it is presumed for want of observing a more liberal policy, for when 
the means of acquiring a fee-simple to lands are so easy and almost within the 
reach of all, but few will be induced to improve lands not their own without 
sufficient compensation." — 3 House Journal, 9. 

* It will be remembered that the school lands belonging to the Connecticut 
Reserve and the two military districts were not sections sixteen. The school 
legislation for each of these districts is entirely distinct from that applying to 
the rest of the State. 

^ 3 Ohio Laws , 230. 

* 4 Ohio Laws, 66. Only those townships which contained twenty electors 
came within the provisions of the act. 



1 1 7] Northwest Territory. 45 

though the rent was small the constantly increasing value of 
the property afforded the prospect of a larger income after 
the expiration of the first leases. 

The Legislature next turned its attention to the school 
lands belonging to the Virginia Military Reservation. For 
some reason the provisions of the previous laws were not 
applied here. With the very first act the State entered upon 
an unfortunate and unwise course which was not abandoned 
until a considerable portion of the fund had been irrevocably 
lost to the people of the district. By a law of 1809 the lands 
were to be surveyed and ''sold " at public auction at not less 
than two dollars per acre, and the costs of the survey and 
sale. These costs were to be paid in cash. On the remainder 
the purchaser was required to pay six per cent, interest 
** yearly, forever, subject, however, to alteration by any suc- 
ceeding Legislature, so as to enable the purchaser or pur- 
chasers to make such commutation as said Legislature may 
think expedient." ' The title to the land did not pass from 
the State. A lease for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, 
was given to the successful bidder. By the proviso in the 
law, the lease might be altered in favor of the lessee, but 
not in favor of the State. 

This was an evident attempt to force the school lands be- 
longing to the district upon the market by offering more 
favorable terms than those given by the United States on 
public lands. To purchase government lands the settler 
must pay one fourth of the purchase money immediately, 
and the balance within five years. To purchase the school 
lands at the same price per acre he needed only to pay the 
petty expenses of the survey. For the moneyless immigrant 
here was a grand opportunity. To the school fund on the 
other hand it meant loss and waste. As far as the State was 
concerned, to rent on these terms was equivalent to selling 
outright. Not a single advantage claimed for the leasing 
system in its application to school lands can be found in this 
plan. Under a system of short leases any increase in the 
value of the property inures to the benefit of the lessor, and 

' 7 Ohio Laws, 109. 



4^ Land Grants for Education in the [i i8 

enables him to demand higher rent on a subsequent lease. 
But a system of permanent leases, such as was set up by this 
law, deprived the schools forever of any benefit from the 
increased value, and gave the entire advantage to the lessee. 

The Legislature did not stop here. In the following year 
the law was so amended as to permit the lessee at the time 
of " purchase " to make a cash payment of ten dollars per 
quarter section in lieu of the costs of survey and the first 
five years' rent.' The rent thus commuted for ten dollars, 
even if the lands had been leased at the minimum valuation 
allowed by law, would have amounted to ninety-six dollars.^ 
As the result of these laws there are to-day under lease about 
ten thousand acres in this district at an annual rent of twelve 
cents per acre.' In 1810 the governor expressed a mild 
doubt whether these laws were beneficial to the interests of 
the schools.' Not till many years later, however, did any gen- 
eral opinion arise that such legislation was unwise. 

From the terms of these laws one would infer that the 
wants of the schools in the district were pressing, and that 
an immediate income was desired and needed for the educa- 
tion of the children. Great, then, is one's surprise at finding 
that the rents were not used for school purposes for twenty 
years after the first leases were given. From 18 15 until 
1S29 the money lay in the State treasury, subject to the use 
of the State. For six years of that time it brought no in- 
crease, but in 1 82 1 the State began paying interest which 
was compounded annually.' In 1829 the fund was for the 
first time applied to the cause of education. The whole 
accumulated income was distributed over the Reservation, 

^ S Ohio Laws, 254. 

^ Even this did not satisfy the lessees, for in 1S20 they represented to the 
Legislature that they had not understood that rent was to be paid until the ex- 
piration of six years from the dates of their leases. The Legislature therefore 
absolved them from the payment of rent for another year, although the original 
act could hardly have been misunderstood. — iS Ohio Laws, 71. 

^ Education in Ohio, 28. 

•"'It will not be an unimportant inquiry whether the most effectual measures 
have yet been taken to render the . . . [school] lands in this State sub- 
servient to the purposes for which they were granted." — 9 Senate Jour., 8. 

^ 19 Ohio Laws, 146. Education in Ohio, 21. 



119] Northwest Territory, 47 

and an annual distribution was to be made thereafter of all 
rents accruing.' Had the lands lain idle until the rent was 
thus properly used, they could probably have been leased 
for twice the sum obtained in 1809 ^"^^ 1810." 

The General Assembly of 18 16 realized the improvidence 
of such perpetual leases. Repealing the previous laws they 
provided that thereafter the lands in this district should be 
leased to the highest bidder for ninety-nine years, but that 
in 1835 and every twenty years thereafter the lands should 
be revalued by appraisers appointed by the governor, and 
that the lessee should pay an annual rent of six per cent, on 
each valuation until the next was made."' If fair appraisals 
could be ensured, a lease of this kind was even more advan- 
tageous than a shorter one, for to the good features of the 
latter it added the certainty of a permanent as well as in- 
creasing income. 

During the years in which the lands of the Virginia Mili- 
tary District were passing from the hands of the State, the 
general law of 1805-6, providing for the lease of sections 
sixteen for periods of fifteen years, remained in force. Its 
value, however, had been in a great measure destroyed by 
special legislation. Numerous acts authorized the trustees 
of particular townships to rent lands on special terms, for 
periods varying from ten to ninety-nine years, with and with- 
out provisions for revaluation, and always at a low rent. It 
is beyond doubt that these special laws were passed at the 
instance of interested parties, sometimes even of members of 
the Legislature themselves,* who desired to obtain lands on 
better terms than those offered by the general law. It 
is equally certain that in most instances the lessees and 

' 27 Ohio Laws, 51. 

^ In 1838 they were considered worth nine dollars per acre. — Report Supt. of 
Common Schools, 1838, 36. ' 14 Ohio Laws, 418. 

* " Members of the Legislature not unfrequently got acts passed and leases 
granted either to themselves, to their relatives, or to their warm partisans. One 
senator contrived to get by such acts seven entire sectioHs of land either into his 
own or his children's possession ! ! " — Atwater, 253. This book is valuable, 
but many statements, except where based on indubitable evidence, are to be re- 
ceived with caution. 



48 Land Grants for Education in the [120 

not the schools derived the benefit from this special legisla- 
tion/ 

In 1817, the General Assembly, following the wise plan 
adopted in the previous year for the Virginia Military lands, 
authorized the proper officials to appraise the sixteenth sec- 
tions still unleased and to lease them for ninety-nine years at 
a rent of six per cent, of the valuation, subject to revaluation 
every thirty-three years. Any section not rented at the 
appraised value within a year was to be leased to the highest 
bidder. The law applied also, with a change of executory 
officers, to the lands of the United States Military District." 
As amended in 1821 no land was to be leased which had 
been valued at less than one dollar (!) per acre. ' 

Still the revenue applicable to schools continued so small, 
that by 1820 a general conviction prevailed that something 
was wrong. Many lands had been leased, yet the schools 
were deriving little from them. Few as yet perceived the 
true causes of the trouble. Even the Governor failed to 
locate the prime cause, though he was of the opinion that 
low rents might be in a measure responsible for the small 
net income arising ! * The Legislature if they saw any waste 
in the fund did not attribute it to low rents, for in the face of 
the Governor's suggestion they authorized the cancellation of 
leases on the ground that the lessees were " laboring under 
great embarrassment in consequence of the present reduced 

' ' ' The school lands have been in many instances leased out for different 
periods of time to persons who in numerous instances seem to have forgotten 
that these lands were given to the State for the support of education and for 
the benefit of the rising generation. . . . Shall we proceed on, legislating 
session after session for the sole benefit of the lessees of school lands at the ex- 
pense of the State ? " — From a report made to the Ohio House of Representa- 
tives in 1821. Apud h.'vftzX.^x, 257, 258. 

^15 Ohio Laws, 202. ^ 19 Ohio Laws, 161. 

* " So far as my information extends, the appropriation of the school lands in 
this State has produced hitherto (with few exceptions) no very material advantage 
in the dissemination of instruction — none commensurate with their presumable 
value. Whether this be owing to the comparatively new state of the coun- 
try and the low rate of rents ; whether the property have been let too low 
on durable leases at unpropitious periods ; or whether the fault be attributable 
to an injudicious application of the funds, or expense of management, is difficult 
to decide." — 19 House Jour., 18. 



I2i] Northwest Territory. 49 

price of agricultural produce and the high rents they are 
compelled to pay." ' 

One great cause of the existing state of affairs was too 
much legislation.'' A few general laws, well enforced, might 
have brought to the schools a moderate income. The 
numerous special enactments resulted in a state of chaos, 
in the midst of which designing speculators reaped a harvest 
at the expense of the educational funds. This idea at last 
found voice in the General Assembly. In December, 1821, 
a committee on schools and school lands was appointed in 
the Ohio House of Representatives. They seem to have 
studied the problem with great care. In their report they 
reviewed the whole history of the school lands, and showed 
the evils resulting from the multitude of ill-advised, spe- 
cial laws.^ This special legislation they rightly attributed to 
the importunity of actual or would-be lessees. Hence they 
inferred that the system was at fault, and that by abandoning 
it all incentives to special' legislation would be removed and 
the past errors would not be repeated. To consider special 
legislation a peculiar attribute of the tenant system was 
manifestly an indefensible position. The experience of all 
States shows it to be an evil which, unless absolutely forbid- 
den to the Legislature, will appear at any time and in all 
matters which can be made the subject of legislation. But 
so overpowered were the members of the committee by the 
existing ills that they advocated selling the lands in order to 

' 19 Ohio Laws, 75. A still more striking case was an act authorizing the 
trustees of any township in Faii^field County to relinquish "any part not exceed- 
ing one half of the yearly rent or interest " on any lot therein, for two years. — 19 
Ohio Laws, 144. 

' " From 1803 to 1820 our General Assembly spent its sessions mostly in pass- 
ing laws relating to these lands, in amending our militia laws, and in revising those 
relating to justices' courts. Every four or five years all the laws were amended, 
or, as one member of the Assembly well remarked in his place, ' were made worse.' 
. The laws were changed so frequently that none but the passers of them, 
tor whose benefit they were generally made, knew what laws really were in force. 
New laws were often made as soon as old ones took effect." — Atwater, 253. 
This almost contemporaneous account, while highly colored, is in a great measure 
verified by the official records of laws adopted. 

^ I have been unable to find an official copy of the report in Columbus or else- 
where. It is, however, given in full in Atwater, 257 et seq. 



50 Land Grants for Education in the [122 

avoid all future temptation to yield to the petitions of 
interested lessees.' 

In view of the opinions presented in this report a special 
commission was appointed to investigate the subject and 
consider the needed changes in legislation. Their report was 
made to the next Legislature/ and a committee of the Senate 
in 1823, "availing themselves of the report, " made a long 
series of charges against the existing system of managing the 
lands. They showed that frauds had been practised in the 
appraisals ; that the lands had been systematically under- 
valued by the administrative officers of the townships, and 
that the proceeds in many townships had been lost and 
squandered. These evils they attributed to the lack of 
proper checks upon the local officers, and to the absence of 
any general superintending authority.' The committee as- 
sumed that these faults could not be corrected in the future so 

' ' ' The committee are impressed with the belief that unless these lands are 
soon sold and the proceeds invested ... in some productive stock, no good 
and much evil will accrue to the State from the grant of these lands by Congress. 
. Shall we proceed on, legislating session after session for the sole bene- 
fit of the lessees of the school lands at the expense of the State ? or shall we ap- 
ply to the general government for authority to sell out these lands as fast as the 
leases expire or are forfeited by the lessees ? or shall we entirely surrender these 
lands to present occupants with a view to avoid in future the perpetual impor- 
tunity of these troublesome petitioners ? " — Apud Atwater, 257, 258. 

^ Of this report I have been unable to find a copy. Its conclusions are em- 
bodied in the report next considered. 

" "During almost all previous legislation a local policy has prevailed . . . 
but on a full examination of the subject, it is their [the committee's] opinion 
that the interests of education require a change of policy. They are the more 
confirmed in this opinion as, by correct information received from various, 
quarters, impositions and frauds have been practised, by which means the prod- 
uce of the school lands in many places has been reduced to comparatively 
nothing. . . . The sections number sixteen being . . . distinct and 
independent of each other, without (by legal provision) any possible superintend- 
ence of the Legislature, or any person exercising authority under them, to detect 
fraud or correct abuses, produce necessarily an endless diversity in their manage- 
ment and faithful application of their proceeds ; indeed, so much so that the 
opinion is becoming too prevalent that they are a proper subject of speculation. 
So great have been the impositions practised in this respect that in many places 
valuable lands have been appraised at the nominal sum of twelve and one-half 
and twenty-five cents per acre, as your committee are informed." — 21 Senate 
Journal, 132-134. 



123] Northwest Territory. 51 

long as the lands were subject to leases. Discouraged by 
the picture of ruin presented to their eyes, they recommended 
an abandonment of the system of leasing, and urged that the 
remaining lands be sold in fee, as soon as it became certain 
that the State had the authority for such a step. Pending 
the confirmation by Congress of this power to sell, they 
recommended that all laws authorizing permanent leases be 
suspended, that any lessee be permitted to surrender his 
holding, and that thereafter the lands be leased simply from 
year to year. These last recommendations were adopted by 
the Legislature,' though it must have been evident that only 
those tenants who had made poor bargains, and few had, 
would surrender their leases. Had this step been followed 
up by the establishment of proper checks against fraud and 
abuse by local officers it would have been easy to render the 
remainder of the lands productive of a moderate rent until 
the day arrived when, because of the need for more schools, 
it would have been wise, and from the settlement of the 
region possible, to sell the lands at fair prices. The next 
Legislature began to undo the work of its predecessor by 
enacting that sections sixteen might be subdivided and 
leased for fifteen years without previous appraisal.'' 

The friends of the schools now awakened, and the next 
elections brought into the Legislature men who were de- 
termined to see the end of this unfortunate chapter. They 
called upon the county treasurers in the United States 
Military District to make a report and transmit all school 
moneys to the State treasury.' More important still, they 
required each county assessor to make a list during the 
following year of all the school lands in his county, the num- 
ber of acres, the names of lessees, terms of the leases, and a 
true valuation of the lands, which, together with other infor- 
mation, was to be forwarded to the State Auditor." In the 
following year all subsequent leases of township school lands 
were again limited to one year.^ 

' 21 Ohio Laws, 33. ' 22 Ohio Laws, 418. ^ 23 Ohio Laws, Local, 115. 
^ 23 Ohio Laws, Local, 114. This appears to have been the first attempt 
made by the State to find out exactly the condition of the trast. 
* 24 Ohio Laws, 63. 



'52 Land Grants for Education in the [124 

But the doom of the tenant system in Ohio had been pro- 
nounced. The dissatisfaction with the existing condition of 
affairs had culminated in the report of 1823 already referred 
to. The suggestions there made had taken root. To avoid 
further development of evils which successive Legislatures by 
ill-advised and local legislation had engrafted upon the tenant 
system, not simply the vicious exotic growths were to be 
-pruned away, but the whole system was to be extirpated, 
root and branch. As it was doubtful whether the State had 
the power to sell the lands, the General Assembly of 1824 
framed a memorial to Congress praying for the passage of a 
law confirming this authority in the State.^ In this paper 
all the possible disadvantages of the tenant system were set 
forth in the strongest colors. Imaginary and actual evils 

^were blended in a curious combination. Few serious ob- 
jections were raised which a wiser course of legislation might 
not have avoided in the past or removed for the future. The 
Legislature was, however, so determined on its object that 
they did not doubt that "these evils are such as cannot be 

~ remedied by any course of legislation whatever, if the State 
have not the power under the terms of the original grant of 
disposing of these lands in fee."^ In 1826 Congress passed 
the desired legislation. The State was authorized to sell the 
lands and invest the proceeds in productive funds. No land 
could be sold without the consent of the township or dis- 
trict for whose benefit it had originally been given, while in 
apportioning the income of the fund each township and dis- 
trict was to receive that arising from the proceeds of its own 
school lands.^ 

Sanguine in the belief that at last the schools were to 
reap the full benefit of the munificence of Congress, the 
Legislature set about its new task. During the session of 
1827 laws were passed looking towards the immediate sale of 

^ State Papers, 4 Public Lands, 47. 

" This memorial contains a strong plea against the policy of leasing inperpetuo. 
Its arguments lack force when the system is adopted merely as a temporary 
measure to be abandoned when the value of the land shall have reached a point 
where further appreciation will be slow. 

=^4 U. S. Stat., 138. 



125] Northwest Territory. 53 

all the school lands in the State, except those belonging to 
the Connecticut Western Reserve. It was ordered that 
during the following year a vote of the inhabitants of each 
original surveyed township be taken on the question of sell- 
ing the sixteenth section therein. The result of the vote was 
to be reported to the State Auditor.' In any township 
where no vote was taken or the result was unfavorable to 
the sale, a vote might be taken in any subsequent year on 
petition of a certain number of voters. Where the vote was 
in favor of the sale, the county assessor was to appraise with 
the improvements each parcel of land in the section, which was 
unleased or on which the lease expired within one year. On a 
date fixed by the Legislature, the land was to be sold at pub- 
lic auction, at a price not less than the assessor's valuation. 
Any not sold at the auction was to be disposed of at private 
sale. All moneys were to be paid to the county treasurer, 
and by him to the State Treasurer, separate accounts being 
kept with each township. This law was supplemented by an 
act " to establish a fund for the support of common schools," ° 
which required the State Auditor to keep a separate account 
with each township and district, of the proceeds of school 
lands therein. The faith of the State was pledged to preserve 
the funds and pay six per cent, interest thereon, to be dis- 
tributed annually among the different school districts in each 
township in proportion to the number of families. 

Separate laws were adopted providing for similar votes of 
the electors of the United States Military District, and of 
the Virginia Military Reservation.' In both districts the 
result was in favor of selling,^ and the next Legislature pre- 
scribed terms of sale, essentially the same as for township 
lands.^ In both cases the proceeds of the sales were to be 
passed into the State treasury, and six per cent, interest paid 
by the State to the districts for application to school ex- 
penses. 

These provisions for sales could apply only to such lands 
as were not under permanent lease. The Legislature, how- 

' 25 Ohio Laws, 56. '25 Ohio Laws, 103 ; ibid.. Local, 45. 

' 25 Ohio Laws, 78. ■* Education in Ohio, 24. 

' 26 Ohio Laws, 23, 61. 



54 Land Grants for Education in the [126 

ever, appeared to deem it necessary that lessees should have 
an opportunity to purchase their holdings, even though no 
advantage could accrue to the State by changing leases into 
deeds. Where a tract was rented permanently, the lessee 
was permitted to surrender his lease and to take a deed in 
fee on the payment of the last appraised value of his lands/ 
The folly of such an arrangement is amazing. To permit a 
holder to purchase his lands at a value put upon them from 
three to fifteen years before, was to give him the benefit of 
all appreciation in value since then. Most of the permanent 
leases required a revaluation, either in twenty or in thirty- 
three years from their date. The lessee should have been 
permitted to acquire the title in fee only upon the basis of 
that revaluation, or if he preferred not to wait, he should 
have been made to pay the full value at the date of purchase, 
as determined by a special appraisal. Under the law adopted 
many lessees availed themselves of the opportunity to pur- 
chase the property they had leased. 

The effect of the provision for the surrender of leases was 
precisely what ought to have been foreseen, that the best 
leased lands were purchased at prices far below their true 
worth. The entire advantage promised by the revaluation 
clauses in the leases was lost at once, and the hopes and an- 
ticipations of a large increase in the fund were wrecked for- 
ever,'^ In 1838, upon the urgent recommendation of the 
Superintendent of Common Schools, an officer then known 

^ 25 Ohio Laws, 56, 103 ; 26 Ohio Laws, 23. This provision was by subse- 
quent enactments made even more advantageous to the lessee. See 26 Ohio 
Laws, 10 ; 27 Ohio Laws, 40. 

^ " By the operation of this law the tenant may surrender his lease, and on 
paying the former assessment take a deed in fee-simple for land sometimes worth 
six times as much as he pays. Cases have come to my knowledge where land 
has thus been taken at six dollars per acre, worth, at the time, fifty dollars. 
Thus the township, which was in fact well provided with school lands, is de- 
prived of almost the whole value by a law which can in no case operate for their 
benefit, but always against them. None but good lands are taken on those 
leases, and they are not surrendered unless they have greatly increased in value ; 
the tenants, to be sure, make their fortunes, but the schools are sacrificed. The 
whole loss cannot be estimated now, though it must be immense — in some single 
townships more than fifteen thousand dollars." — 2 Legislative Documents, 1838, 
No. 17, 41. 



127] Northwest Territory. 55 

for the first time in Ohio, the Legislature repealed all laws 
authorizing the surrender of leases of section sixteen/ but 
did not change the provisions for the military reservations. 
The following year a law was enacted, which, if leases were 
to be surrendered at all, should have been enacted in 1827. 
Leaseholders at ninety-nine years were given one year in which 
to give up their leases, and were permitted to take a deed in fee 
at a valuation to be made at the time of surrender by three 
disinterested freeholders under oath. * 

Some of the townships had voted not to sell their school 
lands, and in 1831 an act was passed permitting them to 
lease all unimproved lots for seven years, " for making such 
improvements as the trustees may think advisable," and all 
improved lots for three years, the rent to be paid in money.^ 
This was a return to the policy laid down in the laws of 
1803 and 1805. All moneys from leases were paid to the 
township treasurer and by him distributed to the school dis- 
tricts. This policy has obtained from then until now, and 
the rent from leased lands does not go into the State 
treasury. 

In 1840, through the investigations of the Superintendent 
and the Auditor, several cases of loss and embezzlement in 
past years by county and township treasurers were unearthed 
and reported to the General Assembly. Hitherto there had 
been no officer, and hardly a provision of law, to render such 
acts by the local authorities difficult or hazardous under- 
takings. Now, however, a more strict method of account- 
ing was provided."* The Auditor also instituted suits against 
the defaulting officials. Several of these cases were pushed 
to their termination, when the ardor of the prosecutor was 
cooled on finding that some of the defaulting treasurers were 

' 36 Ohio Laws, 63. 

^37 Ohio Laws, 78. The period during which leases might be surrendered 
was several times extended. 

' 29 Ohio Laws, 493. A pi'oviso in the act required that in any township 
which had voted to sell its lands, no lease was to be given for a period longer 
than one year pending the sale. This was repealed in 1840, thus permitting 
leases as in cases where it had not been decided to sell. — 38 Ohio Laws, 58. 

*■ 38 Ohio Laws, 61, 62 ; 41 Ohio Laws, 62. 



56 Land Grants for Education in the [128' 

appealing to the Legislature for relief from the repayment of 
what they had misused. In some instances the Legislature 
actually passed bills of relief, and the fortunate officials were 
not compelled to restore the deficits. These proceedings dis- 
couraged the Auditor, and several pending suits were 
dropped,^ 

In 1843 a- la-w was passed ° revising the whole subject of 
the sale of section sixteen. The essential changes were that 
if the vote on the question of selling was favorable, the 
Court of Common Pleas was to appoint appraisers, who were 
to be non-residents of the township, to value the lands un- 
der oath. If their proceedings appeared fair to the court,, 
the Auditor was, after due notice, to sell the lands to the 
highest bidder above the appraised value. A holder of a 
permanent lease wishing to surrender it must petition the 
Court of Common Pleas for permission, and if every thing 
appeared fair, he was to have a deed on paying the appraised 
valuation. By a law of the following year,' no holder of a 
permanent lease was permitted to surrender it except by a 
vote of the township. In 1845 five dollars per acre was 
fixed as the minimum price of all school lands. Thereafter 
no land was to be appraised at less than this, nor sold at 
less than the appraised value.^ In 1852 all former laws, 
relating to section sixteen were repealed, and a new law was 
enacted embodying all the later provisions with a few addi- 
tions.^ So few school lands then remained unsold that the 
provisions of the late laws could be of little service. In 
1873 3- general school law was passed containing the embodi- 
ment of all that was good in the immense mass of previous 

* In his report for 1843 he says : " There seems to be no end to the plunder 
upon this fund. The multiplicity of these details has in no wise wearied me, 
but I confess that I have felt my energies relaxed by the facility with which ' relief 
bills ' have been gotten up, and so often succeeded in the General Assembly. 
This fund has been most sadly and signally mismanaged from the beginning. 
The lands have been squandered and the fund has been plundered until it is 
now merely nominal in character. If sympathy for defaulters is to succeed to 
the wrong they have done, it is useless for a single officer to stand in the. 
breach." — 42 Ohio Laws, 19. 

* 41 Ohio Laws, 20. * 43 Ohio Laws, 58. 

' 42 Ohio Laws, 43. * 50 Ohio Laws, 168.. 



129] Nor t Invest Territory. 57- 

legislation.' Like that of 1852, it is substantially a repeti- 
tion of the enactments of 1843, 1844, and 1845. 

The school lands of the Connecticut Western Reserve, 
thus far unnoticed, now demand attention. For some fortu- 
nate reason, probably because the district was sparsely set- 
tled, the Legislature did not touch them during the trouble- 
some era of lease legislation. Some of them had been 
leased for limited periods under the law of 1803. No per- 
petual leases had been given. The lands were thus entirely 
within the control of the district, when the policy of sales 
was entered upon by the State.'^ In 1828 the Legislature 
authorized the people to vote on the question of selling 
the lands.' The vote was not taken as provided, and 
the General Assembly then ordered it taken in October, 
1830.* The inhabitants voted to sell, and in 1831 provision 
was made for th^ appraisal and sale of the lands, on terms 
easy for the purchaser and advantageous to the district.^ 
All proceeds were to be paid into the State treasury. In 
1833 it was ordered that these proceeds should be funded 
annually until the first of January, 1836, and that thereafter 
the income should be distributed annually to the public 
schools in the district.^ The lands were soon sold and the 
final payments were made in 1837.' 

It has already been stated that a large part of the land in 
this Reserve was held by the Indians when Ohio became a 
State, for which no school reservations were made by Con- 
gress until 1834.* This additional grant was about two 
thirds the size of the first. In 1835 the question of selling 
was submitted to vote." The people decided that the wiser 
policy was to hold the lands until the country was more 
thickly populated, when they would be more valuable, and 
the need for schools more pressing. The lands were accord- 
ingly leased on short leases. In 1848 the question was 

' 70 Ohio Laws, 230-238. 

' After 1822 no new lease was to run beyond January T, 1S26. — 20 Ohio 
Laws, Local, 34. '26 Ohio Laws, Local, 135. 

* 28 Ohio Laws, 18. '' Education in Ohio, 28. 

' 29 Ohio Laws, Local, go. * Supra, 33. 

' 31 Ohio Laws, 24, * 33 Ohio Laws, Local, 128. 



. 5^ Land Grants for Education m the [130 

again submitted, and the sale was ordered.^ They were 
ojffered on the same terms as the first instalment, and were 
soon sold. The final payments were made in iSsS.'' The 
management of these lands was in accordance with what 
would seem the true poHcy to be observed in the disposition 
of school lands. Still it is probable that they were sold too 
soon. The average price received per acre was but two dol- 
lars and seventy-four cents. Had they been held a few years 
longer they could probably have been sold for from five to 
ten dollars per acre. 

Of the school lands in the State, those belonging to the 
United States Military District and the Connecticut Re- 
serve have all been sold. Of those belonging to the Vir- 
ginia Military Reservation, all have been sold except about 
ten thousand acres, which are under perpetual lease. Over 
seven eighths of the sixteenth sections have been sold, but 
it is not possible to ascertain the exact figures, nor to know 
how much of the remainder is under perpetual lease. ^ 

Since 1827, when the first laws concerning the sale of 
school lands were enacted, the money arising from the sales 
has been paid into the State treasury. In the early days 
the State borrowed these' funds, from year to year, by spe- 
cial acts, paying six per cent, interest for their use.* In 1830 
it was provided that all moneys thereafter coming into the 
treasury from these sales should be loaned to the State at 
six per cent., to be used for building canals, and when those 
were finished to be applied to the sinking fund.^ From that 
time all such moneys have been borrowed by the State for 
its various needs, and the proceeds of the school lands exist 
only in the form of an irreducible State debt, on which the 
State pays interest to the school fund for distribution under 
the law, " and the faith of the State of Ohio is pledged for 
the annual payment " of the same.* 

' 46 Ohio Laws, 38. ^ Education in Ohio, 28. * Education in Ohio, 29. 

* See, for instance, 26 Ohio Laws, 73. ^ 28 Ohio Laws, 56. 

^ " The principal of all funds arising from the sale or other disposition of 
lands or other property granted or intrusted to this State for educational and 
xeligious purposes, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished ; and 
the income arising therefrom shall be faithfully applied to the specific objects of 
the original grants or appropriations." — Const. 1851, Art. VI., Sec. I. 



131] Northwest Territory. 59 

Under the terms of the original grants by Congress it is 
required that each township or district shall receive the pro- 
ceeds of its own lands. This has necessitated the keeping 
of accounts with each separate township or district, and on 
the books of the State Auditor are eight hundred and 
twenty-three distinct funds held in trust for the benefit of 
common schools/ These funds, owing to obvious causes, 
vary in amount. While some townships receive a good in- 
come, others, through the waste of their lands, have but a 
small fund and a slight income. The evil effects of this are 
obviated by a common school fund raised by State taxation, 
and annually distributed in such a way as to nearly equalize, 
according to population, the income of the different school 
districts.^ 

The salt lands, which were given to the State for educa- 
tional purposes in 1824,' were ordered sold at public auction." 
In 1827 a common school fund was established, to belong in 
common to the people of the whole State, consisting of the 
proceeds of these lands, together with such legacies and 
donations as might be made.^ Interest was to be paid by 
the State, and to be funded annually until January, 1832. 
In 1 83 1 the period during which the interest was to be 
funded was extended until the first of January, 1835,^ after 
which all subsequent interest accruing was to be divided 
among the counties in proportion to the number of white 
male inhabitants. From 1835 until 1845 the annual distri- 
bution of interest was made. In the latter year, without 
any authority from the Legislature, the State ofificials ceased 
paying and distributing the interest. This condition of 
affairs continued unnoticed, or at least undisturbed, until 
1873, when the State was pledged by law to pay annually 
the interest arising from " the money paid into the treasury 

' Education in Ohio, 31. 

^ The constitution of 1851 provides that " The General Assembly shall make 
such provisions, by taxation and otherwise, as with the interest arising from the 
school trust fund, will secure a thorough aad efficient system of common schools 
throughout the State." — Art. VI.. Sec. 2. 

' Supra, 34. * 25 Ohio Laws, 78. 

* 24 Ohio Laws, 41. '29 Ohio Laws, 423. 



6o Land Grants for Education in the [132 

from the sales " of these lands/ The intention of this law- 
was to make the proceeds of the sales a permanent irreduci- 
ble common school fund, with interest payable by the 
State in accordance with the original law of 1827." So far 
as I can ascertain, it has never been carried into effect, and 
now, as during the period from 1845 to 1873, the schools 
receive no income from the proceeds of these lands, which 
the State has received and spent. The fund, amounting to 
$41,024.05, has disappeared from view, and the State officials 
seem unable to locate it.^ 

In 185 1 the Legislature provided that the proceeds of the 
swamp lands* should be added to the school fund.^ In 1853 
the law was modified and provision made for reclaiming and 
draining the lands, " to be paid for in said lands." The re- 
mainder, after paying all expenses, were to be sold and the 
proceeds paid into the treasury for the use of common 
schools." The interest was to be funded until 1855, and 
thereafter distributed. There were but 25,640 acres of the 
land, and nothing reached the treasury from the sales for 
many years. In 1874 a few sales were made, and since then 
about six thousand dollars has been paid in. According to- 
a law passed in 1873 this money should form a part of the 
permanent common school fund with annual interest at six 
per cent., payable by the State,^ but in reality it has been 
used for school expenses as fast as it has been paid in.^ 

' 70 Ohio Laws, 195, Sec. 132. "The State is in truth bound to pay in- 
terest on the principal of the fund which [by the accumulation of interest ?] is 
some thousands of dollars more than the proceeds of the sales." — Education 
in Ohio, 32. 

' See Revised Stat., 1880, Sec. 3952. 

* " No such fund exists at present. The reports of the Auditor of State for 
1870-71 show that the sum of $41,024.05 was credited to the ' salt '-land fund. 
No interest was paid on this fund, and the reports fail to show how it was dis- 
tributed, though our predecessors inform us it was disbursed with the common 
school fund."(!) — Extract from a letter of the Auditor of State, dated May 19, 
1884. 

* Supra, 20 et seq. ' 51 Ohio Laws, 357. 

'49 Ohio Laws, 40. ' Revised Stat., 1880, Sec. 3952. 

® " About $6,000 has been paid in on the ' swamp ' lands and distributed with 
*he common school fund." — Extract from letter of Auditor of State, May 19^ 
1884. 



133] Northwest Territory. 61 

Such is the history of the management of the school 
lands in the State of Ohio. That the possibilities of the 
grant have not been realized is acknowledged and regretted 
by all. In the preceding pages some of the causes for this 
failure have been indicated. Others remain to be noticed. 
The great underlying cause was one by no means peculiar to 
Ohio or to the times — the failure to appreciate the responsi- 
bility imposed upon the State in guarding this immense 
trust. To this was added a lukewarmness in many parts of 
the State on the subject of common schools. These two 
facts produced a general carelessness in legislation on 
school matters.^ Further, nearly every change made in the 
laws was of necessity an experiment. If her errors were more 
numerous than those of her sister States, some of them must 
be attributed to this circumstance. 

It seems undeniable that many of her lands were forced 
into market in advance of any call for their sale. They were 
leased or sold in districts thinly settled and where prudence 
would have urged delay. True, they were not sold except 
by vote of the inhabitants of the township or district, but 
where any other local interests would be benefited by sales 
the people were apt to ignore the effect on the school fund. 
So long as the State was the guardian of the property, she 
ought not to have sanctioned proceedings which sold lands 
for five, ten, or twenty per cent, of what might have been 
realized.* 

^ Governor Lucas said in 1832 : " Never until the session of 1824-5 could the 
Legislature be brought to give their assent to the passage of a bill to regulate 
common schools. The first act met with serious opposition in some parts of the 
State, and petitions were presented for its repeal. . . . But I trust the time 
is not far distant when public opinion will be concentrated in favor of supplying 
the means of instruction. All that is wanted is to have public opinion in its 
favor." — 31 House Journal, 54. In 1827 the Governor in his message says : 
" That our energies and resources have been and are directed to other objects, 
while the cause of education has been neglected or feebly supported, is obvious 
to all." — 26 Senate Journal, 11. 

* " It is not uncommon to find land sold for fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten, 
and in one case even as low as five cents per acre. Men have become pur- 
chasers of whole sections for a mere trifle, and that sometimes where it only re- 
quired a few years to have realized five, ten, fifteen, or twenty dollars per acre. 
And let it be borne in mind that in most cases where school lands have beea 



62 Land Grants for Education in the [i34 

In 1837 a State Superintendent of Common Schools was 
appointed. His investigations soon showed that such an 
officer had been needed in years past to enforce the proper 
execution of the laws and to advise regarding necessary 
legislation. Among his first labors was the examination of 
the condition of the school lands and funds. In the course 
of this work, he brought to light many evils and much ob- 
liquity on the part of local officials. Whether because he 
had probed too deeply into past transactions and spoken too 
plainly of past errors, or for other reasons, the office was 
abolished in three or four years, and its duties added to 
those of the Secretary of State. His labors bore fruit, how- 
ever, in more carefully devised and better executed laws. 

One of the most serious charges brought by the Super- 
intendent was, that special legislation had seriously inter- 
fered with the workings of the general laws, as well after 
as before the policy of sales had been adopted, and always 
to the disadvantage of the trust fund. The State Auditor 
also devoted attention to the subject, and in his conclusions 
coincided with the views of the Superintendent. " A most 
serious evil," he says, "to the portion of the community in- 
terested therein, has grown out of the loose character of our 
legislation upon the subject of school and ministerial leased 
lands." ' It seems clear that had the general laws, bad 
though many of them were, been permitted full execution, 
much that was ill would have been avoided.^ 

sold at two, three, five, or even ten dollars per acre, tlie public has lost a 
hundred per cent, by pressing the sale too early." — Report of Supt. of Common 
Schools, 1839, 58. 

^Auditor's Report, 1839, 20, printed in 38 Ohio Laws. 

^ ' ' The evil perhaps cannot be better portrayed than by citing a single case. . . . 
Fractional section 29 in the 4th township, fractional range in Hamilton County, 
was originally leased as other lands. On the 29th of January, 1821, a special 
act was passed by the Legislature, by which the trustees were ' authorized and 
empowered, with the consent of the present lessee, to re- lease the same upon 
any terms which in their opinion would best secure the interests of the town- 
ship.' Under this broad power a new lease was given to the lessee, subject to 
a rent of forty dollars per annum, and dispensing with all future revaluations. 
The tract lies immediately . . . adjoining the city of Cincinnati. It is still 
held under the lease of forty dollars per annum, and at this day [1839] is esti- 
mated to be worth not less than 07ie hundred thousand dollars. . . . This is an 



135] Northwest Territory. 63 

The abolition of the leasing system had not done away 
with special legislation. As before, acts affecting individual 
townships or particular lands were passed on the petition of 
parties interested in obtaining special privileges. All kinds 
of special and local legislation were enacted.' The diffi- 
culties in resisting these petitions were great, but had the 
interests of the cause of education lain closer to the hearts 
of the people and legislators, successful resistance could have 
been made.* The Auditor pleaded for a radical change. 
"Much waste," he says, "has been committed, and much 
wrong has been done ; but if special legislation can be 
avoided for the future, if our present laws can remain in 
force, if salutary provisions can be observed for a correct 
appraisement before sales, and a strict system of accounta- 
bility be persevered in, the remnant of our lands may be made 
a valuable inheritance to those of our people who have re- 
isolated case, but there are hundreds in existence in our religious, and, what is 
equally important, in our school lands, where, in the looseness and inadvertence 
of special legislation, the revaluation clauses have been repealed, and the causes 
of religion and education deprived of the benevolent grants for their support." — 
Ibid., 20. Again he says : " In addition to the instances before given of the 
repeal of revaluation clauses, there are special acts granting privileges to sur- 
render leases at old, and consequently low, valuations — acts authorizing sales 
without sufficient guards as to appraisement, and last, though not least, special 
laws changing in particular cases the modes of sale from those adopted in the 
general law on the subject." — Ibid., 32. 

^ ' ' Ohio has perhaps more than any other State suffered from the over-abun- 
dance of private legislation, of charter-mongering, contract-letting, and debt- 
creating. Corruption has, through unstable and hasty legislation, burdened 
the people with debts and taxation to a deplorable extent. No State has 
greater reason than Ohio to complain of the iniquity of the lobby. For years 
the business of lobbying for counties and towns and city charters was a lucrative 
one, and private emolument has been the basis of five sixths of the legislation in 
Ohio, as well as of other States, . . . The State Legislature has come to be re- 
garded more as the means of exacting something from the public, than as the 
meeting of the delegates of the people assembled to transact public business un- 
der written instructions. Surely these evils are to be removed, and they may 
easily be done away with by general laws." — Democratic Review, March, 1847, 
202. 

' " I can refer to my own experience for evidence of the honest zeal with 
which legislators often strive to gratify their constituency in the passage of 
special acts where individual interest conflicts with public advantage." — Audi- 
tor's Report, 1839, 32. 



64 Land Grants for Education in the [136 

tained them from the common sacrifice." ' The blame was 
due not only to the Legislature, but to the people who had 
permitted — nay, sought — much of this disastrous local legisla- 
tion.'' But all eyes were finally opened by the efforts of the 
Auditor and others, and the worst evils were soon corrected. 
Had the awakening come a few years earlier, the people of 
Ohio would have less to regret in the management of their 
school lands. 

{b) INDIANA. 

The territorial Legislature of Indiana exercised a more 
immediate control over the lands reserved for schools than did 
the territorial authorities of Ohio. In 1808, four years after 
the lands were reserved, the Courts of Common Pleas in the 
various counties were authorized to lease school sections dur- 
ing the ensuing year, on improvement leases, for not more 
than five years, the lessee to clear at least ten acres for each 
quarter section held by him.^ Tvy^o years later, the same 
courts were empowered to lease the lands under such restric- 
tions as seemed best to them. No lessee was to have more 
than one quarter section. The proceeds were to be applied 
by the courts " to the support of common schools accord- 
ing to the true intent of the Act of Congress." * Here, then, 
six years before the lands had actually been granted and 
Indiana had become a State, was a law looking to the estab- 
lishment of a revenue for the schools. Without discussion, 
the plan of leasing had been adopted. The law unfortu- 
nately left the period of the leases subject to the discretion 
of the Court of Common Pleas. 

' Auditor's Report, 1840, 32. 

^ " If these existing evils are beyond remedy, if it be that . . . special legis- 
lation — that bane of all governments — ^has vi^alled these injuries about so well 
-with vested rights that no virtue but endurance is left, it will form another of 
the deep-seated evils — the strangely infatuated waste of property that has 
marked the disposition — nay, almost destruction — of the benevolent grants of 
Congress for religious and school purposes, and which, now looked upon, cause 
every good heart to beat with pain, not at the improvident, unjust range of 
special legislation, but the heartlessness of individual avarice and cupidity 
which has thus rioted upon the invaluable inheritance of posterity." — Audi- 
tor's Report, 1839, 20. 

' Territorial Laws, 1808, 36. * Territorial Laws, iSio, 46. 



137] Northwest Territory. 65 

It has already been seen that when Indiana was admitted 
as a State the school lands were given not to the State 
but to *' the inhabitants of the township." The Legislature 
could, therefore, exercise no immediate control over the 
funds, and could merely lay down general rules for the 
guidance of the local authorities in managing the trust. 
The constitution adopted by the State provided that no 
school lands should be sold before the year 1820.' The first 
session of the State Legislature authorized* the appoint- 
ment of a superintendent in each township to manage 
section sixteen. He was empowered to rent unleased lands, 
" to the best advantage, for not more than seven years." 
Cleared land was, however, to be leased for only three 
years.^ 

In 1821, a special committee of the State Senate was 
appointed to investigate the condition of the school lands, 
and to report the best plan in its opinion for deriving a rev- 
enue from them. The report of this committee discussed 
the relative advantages of cash sales, credit sales, and perma- 
nent leases, and after a careful presentation of the arguments 
in favor of each, held that a system of cash sales with the 
proceeds immediately funded was the best permanent policy." 
The arguments against leases were drawn from the experi- 
ence of Ohio and other States.' To the conclusions of the 
committee no valid objections exist, provided the lands are 
not forced upon the market at too early a day. This report 
produced no immediate change in the policy already 
adopted. 

The next step carried the Legislature away from solid 
ground. The same lack of coincidence between the boun- 

1 Constitution, iSi6, Art. IX., Sec. i. 

' Indiana Laws, 1817, 104. 

^ The lessee was to set out fifty fruit-trees each year, for which a deduction 
was to be made from the rent. The superintendent had full power to prevent 
trespass and waste upon the lands. In 1818, the period of these leases was 
changed from seven to nine years. — Indiana Laws, 1818, 301. 

* Senate Jour., 1821-22, Appendix. 

* " The system has been adopted in many parts of the United States . . . 
of leasing the lands either permanently or for a life or lives. But the same 
beneficial results have not been here as in Europe." 



66 Land Grants for Education in the [138 

daries of the surveyed or congressional townships and the 
civil townships existed in Indiana as in Ohio, and in 1824 
a law was passed to incorporate the congressional townships 
for the purpose of creating a controlling power over section 
sixteen. Trustees elected in each township were to have 
control of the school lands therein, and " to dispose of them 
in such manner as is for the best interest of the schools," 
but no sale in fee was to be made/ Every guard against a 
waste of the grant was thrown down by this law. Here was 
authority given to lease the lands on any terms for any 
length of time, with no saving clause except that the lease, 
like all others, might be cancelled if the lessee failed to keep 
his part of the contract. Truly, this was a method of dissi- 
pating the grant, easier and simpler than the Ohio plan of 
numerous and complicated special laws. As the ideas of 
the trustees of the various townships differed on the value 
and importance of the grant, uniformity in the leases was 
not to be expected under this arrangement. Probably few 
of the trustees had ever given any thought to the subject, 
and when they were invested with full power over the lands, 
it is little wonder that the terms of some leases were absurd 
and improvident.^ It required but one year to satisfy the 
Legislature of the improvidence of this measure. In 1825 
the law was amended, so that leases could not thereafter be 
given for more than ten years, while in all other regards the 
terms were still left to the judgment of the trustees.'^ It 
soon became apparent that the funds were suffering vast 
waste and loss in many townships. The people saw that 
too much responsibility was thrown upon the local trustees, 
many of whom were not qualified for the position. The un- 
fortunate terms of the grant, by which each township was 
made the owner and manager of its section sixteen, made 
the evil in a degree unavoidable. But the Legislature should 

' Indiana Laws, 1824, 379. 

" The effect of this law and of the similar territorial law of iSlowas shown by 
Governor Ray, in his message of 1826, where he says: "There are already 
leases given in this State on these lands for almost every term from five to 
ninety-nine years." — Senate Journal, 1826, 33. 

^ Indiana Laws, 1825, 93. 



139] Northwest Territory. 6y 

have adopted more stringent regulations, leaving as little to 
the judgment of the trustees and the township as was com- 
patible with the conditions of the grant. A uniform system 
of leases for the whole State would have preserved the lands 
in better shape, until the proper moment came for selling 
them.' The failure to provide such a system from 18 10 to 1826 
gave opportunity for irregular and unwise acts of trustees 
by which many township funds suffered irreparable damage. 

Causes were now at work which turned legislation in an- 
other direction. The petition of Ohio for power to sell her 
school lands, the favorable answer of Congress in 1826, and 
the growing conviction that, for Indiana, owing to the 
peculiar conditions under which the school lands were held, 
the system of leasing was a disadvantageous one, drew at- 
tention to the policy of selling. In 1827 the Legislature 
asked Congress for authority to order sales.* Congress, in 
1828,' granted the power with the same restrictions and 
limitations that had been imposed upon Ohio." 

At the next session of the Legislature provision was 
made for obtaining a vote of each township on the question 
of selling its lands, and for reporting the same to the Gener- 
al Assembly.^ Where the townships voted to sell, the 
trustees were to place a minimum value of not less than 
$1.25 per acre, on each parcel of land. The county commis- 
sioner of school lands was then to sell them at public 
auction. Any leased lands might, with the concurrence of 
the lessee, be sold subject to the lease, or the lease might be 

' " That section of land in each congressional township for the use of com- 
mon schools," said Governor Ray, in 1826, "requires your particular notice. 
The laws regulating these lands are susceptible of improvement. Something 
should be done to prevent the commission of waste of them. What strikes me 
as most likely to succeed under the present mode of disposing of them, is to give 
long leases for a certain and determinate term of years on a yearly ground-rent, 
and to subject trespassers to an indictment in the Circuit Court. . . . What- 
ever plan you may devise lei it have uniformity in view." — Senate Journal, 
1826, 33. 

" Joint Resolution, January 25, 1827. Indiana Laws, 1827, 103. State 
Papers, 4 Public Lands, 957. ' 4 U. S. Stat., 298. 

* Supra, 52. The act was a literal copy mutatis mittandis of the one au- 
thorizing sales in Ohio. ' Indiana Laws, 1828, 112. 



'68 Land Grants for Education in the [140 

cancelled/ This law, modelled upon those of Ohio, was an 
improvement upon the latter in two particulars. By fixing 
a minimum value, no lands could be sold at such prices as 
ten, twenty, or thirty cents per acre, as had happened in 
Ohio. Neither could lessees here purchase their holdings at 
a valuation made years before, when they first obtained 
their leases. Any one who purchased, even though he were 
a former tenant, must purchase at public auction at a price 
not below that set by the trustees. Where the township 
voted not to sell, or where for want of bidders no sale was 
made, the township trustees were to lease the lands for any 
term not exceeding ten years.^ 

Another feature of the Indiana system grew out of the 
terms of the original grant. In Ohio the State controlled 
the funds arising from the sale. In Indiana, on the other 
hand, the Legislature did not assume the immediate and 
direct handling of the funds, but, leaving them with the 
county commissioners, contented itself with directing in a 
general way how the moneys should be invested. By the 
law of 1829 the county commissioners were instructed to 
loan the proceeds of the sales on real-estate mortgages bear- 
ing six per cent, interest and running not more than three 
years.' In 1831 occurred a general revision of the laws of 
the State, and a few changes were made in the provisions 
touching school lands. The most important was the estab- 
lishment of a State loan-ofifice, and the provision that any 
funds arising from the sales should either be deposited in 
this ofBce or loaned by the county commissioner on mort- 
gage, as the township might order by vote. If deposited in 
the loan-ofifice, the State guaranteed the payment of six per 
cent, interest.* Where money was loaned on mortgage by 
the county commissioner only three hundred dollars could 
be loaned to any borrower. 

' Indiana Laws, 1829, 120. 

^ This limit was reduced to eight years in 1831. Since 1830 the consent 
of a majority of all legal voters in the township has been required to authorize 
a sale. — Indiana Laws, 1830, 150. ' Indiana Laws, 1829, 120. 

* Revised Code, 1831, Chap. LXXXVI. Only three or four townships 
placed their funds in the hands of the State. 



141] Northwest Territory. 69 

The habit seems to have obtained in Indiana of reenacting 
a whole law whenever it was desired to make an amendment 
to one or more sections of it. Accordingly in 1833, i837> 
and 1841, complete laws were enacted concerning the school 
lands, which, save in a few minor particulars, were mere re- 
enactments of the revision of 1831.' The only important 
change was one made in 1833 reducing the limit of leases 
from eight to three years. 

While these laws established all necessary safeguards for 
appraisement and sale of the lands, the provisions for the 
investment of the proceeds would impress a careful business 
man as likely to result in loss. Few capitalists would en- 
trust to an irresponsible and untried agent the business of 
loaning their money on mortgages without more careful in- 
structions and limitations than were imposed by these laws. 
The system of accounting — if, indeed, it may be called a 
system — consisted in reporting annually the amount on hand 
and amount loaned. Under these conditions it was natural 
that through ignorance or connivance some of the county 
commissioners should lend money on worthless securities, 
and that in a few instances portions of the funds were per- 
manently borrowed by the commissioners without interest. 
A suspicion seems to have occurred in 1841 that the moneys 
were not carefully invested, and the reports of that year 
were examined more closely by the State authorities. The 
result is thus told by Governor Biggar: " The returns from a 
portion of the counties show their school funds to be well 
managed. In others they may be safe, but the accounts are 
in so much confusion that no correct opinion can be formed. 
In some cases the whole fund has been totally, irretrievably 
lost."* He intimated that a thorough investigation was 
necessary, in order to ascertain what was the actual condi- 
tion of the funds, and what was needed to rescue them 
from the existing " chaos and confusion." ^ 

' Indiana Laws, 1833, 83 ; 1837, 15 ; 1841, 51. * Senate Journal, 1843, 20. 

^ " The unofficial investigations already made show enough to establish the 
necessity of searching for funds which have been misapplied or apparently lost, 
and of tracing their history from the time they first came into the hands of the 
•agents entrusted with their management." — Ibid., 21. 



70 Land Grants for Education in the [142' 

Whether as the result of these disclosures or from other 
causes, all proceeds of sales were, in 1843, ordered to be paid 
over to the county treasurer and loaned by him. A more 
accurate and systematic method of book-keeping was in- 
augurated, and strict account was to be rendered annually 
of the state of the various township funds. This change 
resulted in a more safe and economical management and 
investment of the funds, and in the clearing up and straight- 
ening out of the tangled accounts of the commissioners. In 
the course of this work it was found that much money had 
been lost through poor and unwise loans. 

For several years the State had been accumulating a fund 
for the support of common schools in addition to that de- 
rived from the township lands. This was drawn from such 
various sources, was intrusted to so many different officials, 
and invested in so many ways, that its management had 
caused much expense, while the money itself was not always 
secure from loss. In 1849 ^^ attempt was made to simplify 
the system.^ But the evil was of such magnitude^ that the 
constitutional convention of 185 1 sought to remove it by 
consolidating the various funds into one " common school 
fund." The fund was to be kept intact, and its income 
inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools.^ 
The township lands and their proceeds were, by the new con- 
stitution, apparently made a part of this common school fund. 

Tired of the continual losses and shrinkages occurring 
through the carelessness of the county officers, by whom, 
certain of the funds were invested,* the framers of the con- 

' Indiana Laws, 1849, 123. 

"^ ' ' The whole concern as it has been heretofore managed is , . . utterly 
odious in every respect. . . . The funds have been entrusted to the custody of 
an army of officers, whose fees and perquisites must necessarily consume a large 
part of the income of the various funds, if they be ever so well managed. . . . 
Our present system is extravagant and wasteful, the management of our school 
funds costing us annually one third as much as that of the State government."' 
— Debates, Constitutional Convention of 1851, 1882, 1883. 

* Constitution, 1851, Art. VIII., Sec. 2. 

* " We have been the passive recipients of the bounty of the United States, 
and have, by our neglect and mismanagement, wasted thousands of dollars o£ 
the principal of this bounty." — Debates, Constitutional Convention, 1851. 



143] Northwest Territory, 71 

stitution inserted a clause making each county responsible 
for the preservation of any school funds in its hands.' This 
provision, if enforced, would ensure the careful handling and 
investment of the principal of the school endowment. 

In 1852 the Legislature, following, as they believed, the 
letter and spirit of the constitution, abolished the corporate 
existence of the congressional townships, and provided that 
the income of the whole school fund, including that derived 
from lands, should be distributed ratably among the counties 
for the support of schools according to the number of en- 
rolled scholars.* This enactment was plainly inconsistent 
with the acts of Congress already cited, ^ by which the pro- 
•ceeds of each school section were secured to the inhabitants 
of the township in which it lay. Whatever may have been 
the general advantages of a uniformity of funds and income 
throughout the State, it was not to be expected that, in 
view of its legal rights, a township which had been so fortu- 
•nate or wise as to derive a large fund from its lands, would 
consent to share the result of its care and thrift with some 
less prudent township. Accordingly one of the townships 
applied to the courts to enjoin the county ofificials from exe- 
cuting the law and diverting the income belonging to the 
township to the support of schools elsewhere. A temporary 
injunction was granted. The matter was then carried before 
the Supreme Court on appeal. 

This trouble grieved the Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, who viewed it as an attempt to break do\yn the 
school system established under the new constitution. He 
thought that the suit was prompted by motives of selfish- 
ness, and not because any injury or injustice resulted from 
the law.* He even entered into a useless argument to show 
that it could never have been the intention of Congress to 
make the grant in such form as to cause an inequality of 
funds, and hence of school facilities, in the different town- 
ships.' There can be no doubt that this inequality was an 

> Constitution, Art, VIII., Sec. 6. ■• Report Supt. of Publiclnstr., 1852. 

* Revised Statutes, 1852, chap. 98. ' Ibid., iSS3, Passim. 

* Supra, 35, 67. 



72. Land Grants for Education in the [144 

evil, but in order to remove it the State could not presume 
to violate the plain terms of the trust. 

The Supreme Court, in the opinion rendered in the case,' 
reviewed the whole legislation of Congress and the State on 
the subject, and decided that the law of 1852, in so far as it 
subjected the proceeds of the school section to distribution 
outside the township in which it lay, was contrary to the 
terms of the grant and to the State constitution." The 
injunction was therefore made perpetual. 

In consequence of this decision the law was revised in 
1855.' The income from the township lands and funds was 
secured to the townships as before, while the school moneys 
from all other sources were consolidated into the common 
school fund. A plan was devised whereby the income of 
this latter fund was so distributed that, taken in connection 
with the income from the lands, it made the school revenue 
of the townships nearly proportional to the number of school 
children in each.* In this way the former inequalities were 
avoided without violating the rights of the townships. Ac- 
cording to this same law the township funds were thereafter 
to be loaned by the county treasurer on mortgages at seven 
per cent. The Superintendent of Public Instruction who, in 
1852, had opposed this system of loans as liable, judging 
from past experience, to result in loss,^ later became its advo- 
cate, believing that the constitutional provision making the 
counties responsible for all losses removed the objections 
to it.' 

In 1865 a complete school law was enacted ' whose pro- 
visions, so far as they pertain to the lands, are substantially 
like those in force to-day. By this law the proceeds of the 
lands are deposited with the county treasurer and by him 
loaned to individuals on mortgages at a rate of interest es- 

^ State et al, vs. Springfield Township, 6 Indiana Reports, 83. 

^ Art. VIII., Sec. 7, which had apparently been overlooked when the law of 
1852 was passed, reads : " All trust funds held by the State shall remain invio- 
late, and be faithfully and exclusively applied to the purpose for which the trust 
was created." ^ Indiana Laws, 1855, 161. 

* Ibid. ^ Ibid., i2>S3. 

^ Report Supt. of Public Instr., 1852, 47. ^ Indiana Laws, 1865, 37.. 



145] Northwest Territory. 7j:: 

tablished by law.* The income is distributed annually to 
the proper township. Where the lands are not sold the 
township trustee may lease them for not more than seven 
years at a rent determined by the township meeting. This, 
rent is paid by the trustee to the county treasurer, with 
whom it remains until the next distribution of income. 
When a sale is ordered it is conducted in the same way as 
that laid down in the law of 1829. The amount of funds 
and income is each year reported to the State Auditor. 

Of the township lands all have been sold except about 
7,400 acres, including some acquired by the foreclosure of 
mortgages given to secure loans.^ A large part of this un- 
sold land is under permanent lease, so that the township 
funds can increase but slightly in the future. 

It has already been mentioned that in 1832 Congress gave 
the State permission to sell her saline lands for the benefit 
of education.^ In the next year, by order of the Legislature, 
the lands were surveyed, appraised, and offered for sale.* 
The proceeds were to be loaned by the State Treasurer on 
mortgages, and both principal and interest were " to be here- 
after devoted to education," ^ By a later law the income 
was definitely appropriated "to the use of common schools." * 
This method of handling the fund was pursued until 1844, 
when it was ordered that all moneys " already in hand or to 
arise hereafter " from these lands should be divided ratably 
among the counties. Each county was to loan its share and 
apply the income to the support of schools within its limits.'' 
In pursuance of this arrangement all receipts until 1854 were 
placed in the hands of the counties as a part of the com- 
mon school fund.^ 

By 1850 the best of the land had been sold, and it was 

' This rate since 1873 has been eight per cent. — Indiana Laws, 1873, 73. 

" Report Supt. of Public Instruction, 1882, 202. ^ Supra, 35. 

* By the requirements of Congress they could not be sold for less than one 
dollar and a quarter per acre. 

^ Indiana Laws, 1833, 125. ^ Ibid., 1834, 326. 

' Ibid., 1844, 68. Amended by act of January 12, 1845. — Ibid., 1845, 60. 

® The amount of receipts from sales thus distributed was $48,943.13. — Audi^ • 
tor's Report, 1872. 



74 Land Grants for Education in the [146 

thought that the remainder could not be disposed of save at 
a lower price than the State was permitted to receive. On 
due presentation of this opinion to Congress the limitation 
on the price was removed.' The lands were thereupon 
ordered sold at public auction at a minimum price of fifty- 
cents per acre.^ The proceeds were not to be distributed 
among the counties as before, but were to be held by the 
■ State as a part of the school fund. The lands sold slowly, 
but by 1873 all had been disposed of and the final payments 
made by the purchasers. The money was borrowed by the 
State from time to time, at six per cent, interest. The 
Legislature has adopted the policy of issuing special non- 
negotiable bonds bearing six per cent, interest for all por- 
tions of the school fund held and used by the State. The 
receipts from the saline land since 1854 have been consoli- 
dated with other school moneys, and are represented by por- 
tions of these bonds.^ 

By the constitution of 1851 * the net proceeds of the 
swamplands granted by Congress in 1850 were made a part 
of the common school fund. In furtherance of this pro- 
vision the treasurer of each county was directed by law to 
sell the swamp lands lying in his county. The money was 
to be deposited with the State and the interest thereon an- 
nually distributed to the schools.^ The provisions of the 
law were not in harmony with the terms of the grant, ac- 
cording to which the first duty of the State was to drain and 
reclaim the lands. After they were thus reclaimed any in- 
come from them might be used for such purposes as the 
Legislature or the constitution designated. The law of 
1852 was repealed three years later, and a swamp-land com- 
mission created in each county to take charge of the work 

' 10 U. S. Stat., 15. 

^ Indiana Laws, 1855, 160. 

^ In 1865, $34,323.89 from this source was thus incorporated, — Auditor's 
Report, 1868, 12. Indiana Laws, Special Session, 1865, 57. Again in 1873 
the last receipts, amounting to $6,211.45, were so placed. — Auditor's Report, 
1873, 79- These two amounts are in addition to the portions of the fund held 
by the counties under the law of 1844. 

*Art. VIII., Sec. 2. * Revised Stat., 1852, Chap. 104. 



14/] Northwest Territory. 75 

of reclamation. As fast as possible the lands were to be 
sold and the proceeds paid into the State treasury and cred- 
ited to the swamp-land fund of the county whence they 
were derived. Out of this fund the expenses of the enter- 
prise were to be paid, after which the residue was to go to 
the school fund.^ 

Many lands designated as swamp were not such in reality. 
These sold readily, while many others, especially in one por- 
tion of the State, required much labor and expense to render 
them of any value whatever. Large sums have been received 
from the sales, but the expenses have mounted up propor- 
tionately. Of the proceeds about thirty-eight thousand 
dollars have been added to the school fund.^ The whole 
matter is at present in a tangled state, but there is no proba- 
bility that the schools will derive anything further from this 
source. It is charged that the grant has been neither care- 
fully nor economically managed, and that an honest execu- 
tion of the law of 1855 would have brought many thousands 
of dollars into the school fund.^ 

The experience of Indiana in the management of all these 
school funds has developed a few interesting features. While 
following closely in the footsteps of Ohio, she avoided all the 
serious pitfalls into which her older sister stumbled. Of 
giving permanent leases without provisions for revaluation 
she happily soon learned the folly. When she adopted the 
system of sales, by giving the former lessees no *' preemption 
right" to purchase at old and low valuations, she escaped 
another evil. Of special legislation she had little. Her 
provisions for the sales were reasonably prudent. If, on the 

* Indiana Laws, 1855, 204. 

** Indiana Laws, 1873, 41. Auditor's Report, 1873, 79. 

* " It is believed by good men that much might have been thus added [to the 
school fund] if the Swamp Land Commissioners had cared less for themselves 
and more for education — briefly, if they had all been honest." — Report Supt. 
of Pub. Instruction, 1866, 73. 

Mr, Geo. W. Julian says that, "the Swamp Land Act [of Congress], 
owing to its loose and unguarded provisions, and its shameful mal-administra- 
tion, has been fruitful of wide-spread spoliation and plunder." — Julian, 98. 
This general statement is applicable to at least two of the States under consid- 
eration in this paper. 



^6 Land Grants for Education in the [I4S 

whole, her lands have not produced all that they might (and 
those of what State have?), it is attributable largely to the 
disadvantage under which she labored by the terms under 
which she held them. Local management was the necessary 
characteristic of her system, and with it came into play local 
interests and desires. Many townships sold their lands at 
too early a day, and in numerous instances losses through 
the poor investment and careless handling of the proceeds 
reduced the ultimate fund. Had the State at the start, as it 
has since 185 1, made the counties responsible for all losses in 
the township funds, this last evil would not have been 
serious. The tendency toward too hasty sales seems difficult 
of avoidance and has existed in various degrees in all the 
States. To determine the right moment for beginning the 
sales is no easy problem. 

The method of investing the funds in Indiana differs so 
widely from that in Ohio as to suggest a comparison of the 
two. In Ohio the entire fund has been lent to the State. 
The money has long since been spent for various purposes, 
and the income of the fund is the interest paid by the State 
on this money, borrowed and spent. The interest must be 
raised by taxation. Thus the whole thing comes to saying 
that the people are taxed for the entire support of the 
schools. The fund is safe, and the income is sure and inva- 
riable. But though the money thus borrowed by the State 
may have lessened State taxation in the past, so far as the 
present and all future generations are concerned, the burden 
of supporting the public schools is no lighter than it would 
have been without a grant of land. In Indiana, on the other 
hand, the proceeds of the lands have been loaned on mort- 
gage.^ The advantages claimed for this system are that it 
enables any owner of real estate to borrow small sums of 
money readily, that the security is good, and that the people 
as a whole are not obliged to tax themselves to pay the in- 
terest on the fund. Its disadvantages are two. The liability 

* I am not speaking of the " common school fund," which to a large extent 
has been borrowed by the State, as in Ohio, and annual interest paid thereon 
from the proceeds of taxation. 



149] Northwest Territory. 77 

to losses through defalcation or poor investment, which form- 
erly existed, is, as already shown, removed. One objection is 
that the income will vary as the current rate of interest rises 
or falls, for while the State may provide that this money 
shall be loaned at a certain rate, if the market rate is less 
loans cannot be made except at a lower interest. The other 
disadvantage is that the system is expensive, for it requires 
the attention of many officers and the keeping of many 
accounts. Each of these systems is successful when properly 
carried out, and each is strongly advocated. It is perhaps 
impossible to decide which is the better. Under the Indiana 
system the rate of interest earned by the fund has hitherto 
been higher than under the other, though this will not always 
be the case. In another place an account is given of a third 
system, adopted by some States, which appears to possess 
the good features of both of these, with few if any of their 
disadvantages.' 

{c) ILLINOIS. 

Though the sections for the use of schools in Illinois were 
reserved in 1804, they were made the subject of no legisla- 
tion or supervision during the territorial days. When 
Illinois was admitted into the Union, in 181 8, they were 
given to the State in the same terms as those employed in 
making the grant to Ohio. The Legislature was accordingly 
able within certain limits to exercise full control over them. 
In 1 8 19 the General Assembly, following the precedent 
established by the other two States, adopted the policy of 
leasing the lands. The county commissioners were ordered 
to appoint three trustees for each township, whose duty it 
was made to survey, sub-divide, and lease the school section 
for ten years " on the best possible terms." All rent received 
was to be applied to the maintenance of schools.'' The 
leases given by the trustees under this law were mainly im- 
provement leases.^ 

'^ Infra, 113. 

'Illinois Laws, 1819, 107. At least one lot (forty acres) bearing timber was. 
to be reserved on each section where there was timber. ' Ford, 78. 



78 Land Grants for Education in the [150 

In 1825 a system of local taxation for the support of 
schools was adopted. At the same time it was determined 
that the rents arising from the school lands should be annu- 
ally distributed among such of the inhabitants of the town- 
ship as had contributed during the year, by tax or otherwise, 
to the support of a common school. The division was to be 
in proportion to the amount of tax or contribution paid by 
each.* This curious use of the income of the grant did not 
continue long, for the very name of a tax seems to have been 
so odious to the people of Illinois in those days that the 
whole law excited strong opposition.^ In consequence of this 
feeling it was so modified in 1827 that no man was to be 
taxed for the support of any free school without his own 
written consent,' and the rent from the school section was to 
be distributed to the districts in the township, in proportion 
to the number of scholars.* The township trustees who had 
hitherto been appointed by the county commissioners were, 
after 1825, elected by the people. 

In 1829 the General Assembly passed a law providing for 
the sale of school lands as soon as permission should be ob- 
tained from Congress. By this law the county commissioners 
were to appoint an agent in each township who, on the 
written petition of nine tenths of the freeholders, was to sell 
the lands at public auction for cash at any price not less than 
one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. The proceeds 
were to be loaned by him at twelve per cent, interest, for 
not more than five years, on real estate worth twice the 
amount of the loan. The interest was to be paid to the 
school trustees, and by them distributed under the orders of 
the county court. ^ 

Having waited two years for Congress to take the action 
required to bring this law into operation, the impatient Legis- 

' Edwards, 195, ig6. 

"^ "This valuable law was in advance of the civilization of the times. . . . 
The poorest men . . . preferred to pay all that was necessary for the tuition 
of their children or to keep them in ignorance, rather than submit to the mere 
name of a tax by which their wealthier neighbors bore the brunt of the expense 
of their education," — Ford, 59. 

^ Edwards, 197. ^ Pillsbury, cxxix. " Illinois Laws, 1829, 150. 



151] Northwest Territory. 79 

lature, in 183 1, ignoring all question as to its authority, passed 
a second act providing for immediate sales.' Its terms were 
essentially those of the first law, save that the sale was to 
take place on petition of three fourths of the voters of the 
township, and that previous to the sale the trustee must 
appraise the land. This valuation, which could not be lower 
than one dollar and a quarter per acre, was to be the mini- 
mum price of the land.^ The law permitted the proceeds to 
be loaned for five years at twelve per cent, interest to indi- 
viduals on real-estate security, or for ten years at six per 
cent, interest to any association of citizens desiring to erect 
a school-house. In both cases the amount of single loans 
was limited. In 1833 the requirement of cash payments on 
purchases was repealed, and sales were thereafter made on 
credits of one, two, and three years, with interest.' 

The advantages to be derived by selling the lands at so 
early a date are not obvious. The reasons urged in the Legis- 
lature by those who advocated the change were that unless 
the grants were immediately sold the children of that gener- 
ation would derive no benefit from them, and that the lands, 
if longer leased, would be ruined " by being stripped of their 
timber." * To appreciate the absurdity of the latter reason 
one needs only to know that the greater part of the school 
sections, like the other lands in Illinois, was open prairie and 
bore no timber. Neither is there any strong evidence to 
show that they were not leasing as rapidly as the population 
would warrant, and that they were not furnishing a moderate 
income. Nor had Illinois experienced any such ills from 
leases as had been encountered by Ohio and Indiana. 

Though these were the reasons given in the debate on the 
measure, it is impossible to shake off the suspicion that some 
other motive lay in the background.* If we can believe 
Governor Ford, that motive was a desire to please the lessees, 
who wished to purchase at low prices the lands which they 

' Illinois Laws, 1831, 173. 

* This provision for a valuation was repealed in 1833, and again enacted in 
1835. ' Revised Stat., 1833, 564. * Ford, 79. 

* ' ' These were the reasons assigned in debate, but they were not the true 
reasons for these laws." — Ibid. 



8o La7id Grants for Education iti the [152 

were occupying.' To how great a degree such motives in- 
fluenced the Legislature it is of course impossible to know, 
but some of the subsequent proceedings under the law go 
far to show that they must have had weight. The lands 
were in many instances deliberately undervalued by the 
trustees and sold for less than similar lands would have been 
sold by private parties. 

In 1840 a law was enacted providing that where a major- 
ity of the inhabitants of any township were of the opinion 
that section sixteen had been valued too high, it should be 
revalued at any sum not below one dollar and a quarter per 
acre.^ In the following year the whole legislation on the 
subject of schools and school lands was revised, and a general 
law enacted covering all points. By this law ^ sales in any 
township were to be made at public auction by the county 
commissioner on petition of two thirds of the voters. Though 
the lands were to be appraised before the sale, no minimum 
was established by the law, and in many cases exceedingly 
low valuations were made.* It is difificult to understand why 
the wise provision heretofore in force, that no lands should 
be valued at less than a certain fixed price, was omitted from 
this law. Certainly no good came from the change. By the 
new law the purchaser was allowed from one to five years in 
which to make payments. The proceeds of the sales were 
to be loaned by the county school commissioners at twelve 
per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, and debts due the 
school fund from the estate of a deceased person were 
given a preference over all debts except funeral expenses and 
the expenses of the last sickness. Thus far the State had 
been selling the lands without any authority from Congress, 

1 " I speak what I know when I say that the laws to sell school lands were 
passed to please the people who were settled on them, who wanted to purchase 
them at the Congress price, whilst the other inhabitants, being divided into 
little factions and thinking more of success at one election than [of] the interest 
of all posterity, and acting upon the principle that what is everbody's business 
is nobody's business, aided or suffered the mischief to be done." — Ford, 79. 

* Illinois Laws, 1840, 85. ^ Illinois Laws, 1841, 259-2S7. 

^ " In many cases the lands were systematically undervalued. The lands in 
Franklin County brought on an average but seventy cents per acre." — Pillsbury, 
cxxvii. 



153] Northwest Territory. 8i 

but in 1843 that body passed an act giving the authority on 
the same terms as in Ohio and Indiana. It also legalized 
and ratified all sales that had been made.' 

The law of 1841 regulating the sales, was substantially the 
same as that now in force. Since 1847, however, the funds 
of each township have been loaned by the township treasurer 
instead of the county commissioner.^ In 1845 the rate at 
which township funds might be loaned was reduced to eight 
per cent.,^ and in 1849 raised to ten percent.* In 1865 loans 
were authorized to be made at any rate between six and ten 
per cent.,' in 1867 at from eight to ten and, finally, in 1872, 
the limits were fixed at six and eight per cent. In 1872, 
also, a law was adopted authorizing loans of the funds to 
school districts on bonds issued for building purposes. All 
township funds have been loaned on real estate, on school 
bonds, and in the form of credit sales. ^ The investments 
have been almost uniformly safe, and few losses have oc- 
curred. The average rate of interest on the loans has been 
considerably higher than that paid by the State on educa- 
tional funds which it has borrowed. " Township treasurers 
have always been held to strict account in the management 
of the school fund, the courts holding that nothing can re- 
lieve them from their obligation to safely keep and pay 
over such funds, but the act of God or of the public enemy." ^ 
Over ninety-nine per cent, of the lands have been sold, most 
of them at an early day, at an average of three dollars and 
seventy-eight cents per acre. The remaining 8,513 acres are 
under lease, and many of them are exceedingly valuable.® 

Viewed purely with reference to the accumulation of a 
large permanent fund, the sales of the school lands were 
begun at too early a date. Had they been held under lease 
for fifteen or twenty years longer, their market value would 

1 5 U. S. Stat., 600. " Ibid., 1S49, 166. 

^ Illinois Laws, 1847, 131, Sec. 50. ' Ibid., 1865, 112. 

^ Ibid., 1845, 57. « Pillsbury, cxxviii. ' Ibid. 

^ The leased school lands in Cook County alone are valued at two thirds the 
amount received from all those sold in the entire State. Exclusive of those in 
Cook County, the leased lands are worth about thirty dollars per acre. — Pills- 
bury, cxxvi, cxxvii. 



82 Land Grants for Education in the [154 

have been more than trebled.' It is, however, strenuously 
maintained by some that a small sum available at an early 
day was of greater service to the people than a far larger sum 
a score of years or a generation later, and that, therefore, earl}^ 
sales were advisable.^ While there is much truth in this, 
caution and discretion must be used in selecting the time 
for selling. The proper management of an educational trust 
fund, intended for the benefit of all future ages, cannot consist 
in so disposing of it as merely to satisfy the needs of the earli- 
est beneficiaries. The interests of the vastly greater number 
who will arise are certainly entitled to careful consideration. 

In 1852 the management of the swamp lands was en- 
trusted to the counties in which they lay. It was enacted 
that after any county had sold enough to pay the expenses of 
reclaiming the rest within its borders, the remainder should be 
equally divided among the townships in the county for edu- 
cational purposes, unless the county saw fit to use them for 
works of internal improvement.^ Subsequent laws while 
varying the details of this arrangement have made no essen- 
tial change in the main features of the plan. The lands 
have been controlled entirely by the local authorities. Good 
management has been the rule, and the proceeds over and 
above the expenses have been large. These have been 
added by the townships to the sixteenth section funds, and 
it is impossible to state the exact sum derived from them. 
The total township educational funds to-day are over a 
million and a half dollars greater than the proceeds of sec- 
tion sixteen, and it is asserted by State officials that the 
greater part of this increase has been derived from the swamp 
lands.* It is probable that at least a million dollars has 
been derived by the school funds from this source. 

When Illinois became a State, three per cent, of the pro- 
ceeds of the sales of public lands were granted to her as an 

^ As already stated, the average price received for those sold has been $3.78. 
Statistics show that in 1850 the price of improved land in Illinois ranged from 
$4 and $5 to $25 and $30 per acre, and that in 1857 the prices paid were still 
higher. Cultivated land rented in 1857 for from $1 to $3 per acre. — Gerhard, 
401-405. "^ Pillsbury, cxxvii. 

* Illinois Laws, 1852, 178. ■* Ills. School Report, 1881-2, cxxv. 



155] Northwest Territory. 83 

additional endowment for education, one sixth of it to be 
bestowed on a college/ In 1820 Congress provided for the 
payment of this three per cent, to the proper State 
authorities as fast as the sales were made. The State was 
required to render to the Secretary of the Treasury an 
annual account of the disposition made of this money, in 
default of which future payments were to be withheld.'^ In 
1 82 1 the State Treasurer was authorized by the General 
Assembly to receive the moneys from time to time, and to 
deposit them in the State bank. The bank was to pay the 
treasurer six per cent, interest on such deposits. 

What particular branch of educational work was to be 
promoted by five sixths of this fund had not been specified 
by Congress, but in 1825 the Legislature decided that it 
should constitute a common school fund. It was provided 
that five sixths of the interest paid by the bank should be 
distributed annually among the counties for school purposes 
in proportion to the number of white children of school age.^ 
Whether any interest was actually paid by the bank I have 
been unable to ascertain. 

The money remained on deposit until 1829, when the 
governor was authorized to borrow the whole fund for State 
uses, at six per cent, interest, the interest to be added to the 
principal at the end of every year, until the money should 
be refunded. The occasion for this diversion of the interest 
from its legitimate use lies in some obscurity. The State 
needed money, but there is no evidence that the taxes were 
increased to meet the needs. Indeed, there seems to have 
been a dread of taxes, and it is not improbable that the fund 
was borrowed at this low rate of interest in order to enable 
increased expenses to be met without taxation. The motive 
which inspired the whole measure, if we are to believe some 
writers, was creditable neither to the honor nor to the wis- 
dom of the Legislature. It is charged that the transaction 
was a mere scheme of the legislators to win favor with the 
people, that the school fund was robbed, that a permanent 
debt carrying a large interest was unnecessarily saddled upon 

' Supra, 36. ' 3 U. S. Stat., 610. ' Pillsbury, cxxxvi. 



'34 Land Grants for Education in the [156 

the State forever for the sake of relieving the people in 
earlier days from proper taxation, and that the average 
amount acquired by the State each year under this act was 
less than the amount now annually required to meet the 
interest alone.' The provision for adding the interest to the 
principal until the loan was repaid goes far to substantiate 
some of these charges. Not a dollar was required to meet 
the interest. The whole process consisted in making a few 
entries on the books of the State at the end of each year. 
So long as the State chose, if Congress would consent thus 
to be hood-winked, neither the principal nor the interest 
need be actually paid. Further, this money was borrowed, 
and the interest diverted from the schools in the very year 
when sales of section sixteen were first ordered. One 
ground for ordering those sales was alleged to be that a 
greater income was needed by the schools than v/as then 
accruing. Yet at the very same time the Legislature with- 
held the income of the three-per-cent. fund from the same 
needy schools. No explanation of this direct inconsistency 
has ever been offered. The whole scheme certainly has any 
thing but a clean and honest appearance.^ 

' The following was written in 1847 : " To relieve the State treasury from 
■debt, the Legislature, to save the popularity of members by avoiding the just 
and wholesome measure of levying necessaiy taxes, passed laws for the sale of 
the seminary township, and for borrowing the proceeds of the sale and the 
three-per-cent. school fund ; and for paying them out as other public moneys, 
and for paying an annual interest thereon to the several counties for the use of 
schools. By which means the debt of the State for these moneys alone 
amounted in 1842 to $472,493 [now $829,815]. Thus, as I conscientiously 
believe, was a township of land sacrificed at low prices, the school fund robbed, 
and a debt of near half a million of dollars fixed upon the State, rather than 
that the members would run the risk of not getting back to the Legislature, or 
of being defeated for some other office. This money was paid into the treasury 
in sums averaging $20,000 per annum. The annual interest now paid on it is 
$28,000 [in 1882, $49,799]. And so to save the popularity of the members 
of the Legislature, the State has received about $20,000 a year for about twenty- 
five years, by which she has become bound to pay $28,000 per annum forever ; 
the difference against the State being the difference between twenty thousand 
dollars borrowed, and twenty-eight thousand dollars annual interest, and the 
difference between eternity and twenty-five years." — Ford, 79. 

* A consideration of some further points in this connection is given in treating 
of the seminary lands in Illinois. — Infra, 133. 



157] Northwest Territory. 85 

This temporary diversion of the fund from the cause of 
education, and the failure to render the annual report to the 
Secretary of the national treasury, caused the United States 
to withhold further payments of the three per cent, for sev- 
eral years. A voluminous correspondence ensued between 
the officers of the two governments. Finally, in 1831, Con- 
gress repealed the law requiring the rendering of these 
accounts,' and the payments were thereafter made annuall)!^ 
to the State. In 1835 the Legislature ordered that all 
interest which had accrued to January i, 1834, should be 
added to the principal, and that thereafter the interest at six 
per cent, should be distributed to the several counties for 
the support of schools in proportion to the number of white 
children in each county." From that year until the present 
time this distribution has been made. In 1872, however, the 
word " white " was dropped from the law,' The payments 
to the State were made as the lands were sold by the 
national government until 1863, when the last public lands 
in Illinois were disposed of. The total amount of this three- 
per-cent. fund received from the government, as shown on 
the books of the State, is $712,745.34.* Five sixths of this, 
the amount devoted to common schools, is $593,954-45' 
But there was added to the fund accrued interest to January, 
1834, amounting to $19,408,51, making the total fund 
$613,362.96,^ which exists as a State debt bearing six per 
cent, interest until the principal shall be paid. 

This three per cent, has been paid only on lands sold for 
cash. Many public lands in Illinois have been located by 
military land warrants. Within a few years the State has 
made the claim that she is entitled to the percentage on 
these lands the same as if they had been sold for cash. She 
petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel the Commis- 
sioner of the United States Land Office to make a state- 
ment of the account for the purpose of obtaining the sum 

' 4 U. S. Stat., 431. * Illinois Laws. 1835, 22, 

^ One tenth of the income was appropriated to the Institution for the Deaf 

and Dumb from 1839 until 1872. — Pillsbury, cxxxvii. 

* Pillsbury, cxxxvii. The figures as taken from the books of the United 

States are slightly less. See Document A, 238, ' Pillsbury, cxxxvii. 



86 Land Grants for Education in the [15S 

due the State from these lands. The United States Su- 
preme Court has recently denied the petition, and decided 
that lands located with bounty warrants are not within the 
scope of the act granting the three per cent.' 

{d) MICHIGAN. 

While the legislative power in the Territory of Michigan 
remained, in accordance with the provisions of the ordinance 
of 1787, in the governor and judges, no care was given to 
the subject of the school lands.'' In 1824 the people of the 
territory elected their first local Legislature. In his mes- 
sage to that body the Governor of the territory called 
attention to the school reservation, and suggested " its im- 
mediate preservation and ultimate application in conformity 
with a well-digested system." He intimated, however, that 
it was a question whether — without the express sanction of 
Congress — the territorial Legislature had authority to do 
any thing more than protect the lands from waste.^ In con- 
sequence of this suggestion the legislative council addressed 
a memorial to Congress asking for authority " to take the 
charge and management of the said lots."* In 1828 Con- 
gress granted the prayer of the memorial^ and authorized 
the Governor and council to lease them for any period not 
exceeding four years ^ in such manner as to render them 
productive and most conducive to the object for which they 
were designed. ° 

* 16 Chicago Legal News, 214. The volume of official reports containing this 
decision is not yet issued. 

"^ No surveys of the territory had been made until after the War of 18 12, and 
until then even the location of sections sixteen was not known. 

^Journal Legislative Council, First Sess., First Council, 12. 

"Ibid., 88. 

^ The reasons for this short period are given in the report of a committee in 
Congress as follows : ' ' Strong doubts are entertained of the propriety of 
authorizing a territorial Legislature to grant leases for a term of time beyond 
[that for] which the territorial government will probably exist. And in con- 
ferring the authority asked for upon the Legislative Council of Michigan, it is 
believed that it should be done with a limitation to a short period of time."-— 
State Papers, 4 Public Lands, 762. 

«4U. S. Stat., 314. 



159] Northwest Territory. 87 

In the same year a territorial law was adopted empower, 
ing each township having twenty electors to elect trustees, 
who should lease the school section for not more than three 
years, the proceeds to be applied "towards the pay of school 
teachers in said township." ' It is worthy of note that this 
earliest law of Michigan contained the wise provision not 
found in the laws of the other States, that no resident upon 
or lessee of any school section should be eligible to the 
office of trustee. In the next year more definite provision 
was made for the distribution of the proceeds of rents, and 
the Governor was authorized to appoint a Superintendent 
of Common Schools to take charge of the school lands in 
all townships where trustees had not been elected. His 
authority was confined to protecting them from waste and 
injury. All trustees were to report to him annually the 
condition of their school lands, rents, etc., and he was to 
report to the council.' No Superintendent was appointed, 
but the law is noteworthy as the first in the whole North- 
west Territory providing for one central authority to manage 
all the school lands. It foreshadowed the eventual departure 
from the system in vogue in the three oldest States of the 
territory — a change from local to central management. In 
1832 the duties of the township trustees were transferred to 
the township commissioner of schools, thus doing away 
with one needless set of officers.' 

In the general revision of the laws in 1833 the powers of 
the commissioners remained unaltered. The provision for 
a Superintendent of Common Schools was revived, and he 
was given the power to lease school lands in any township 
where no commissioners were elected.'' Still the Governor 
did not appoint any one to the office, perhaps because the 
salary (twenty-five dollars a year and official expenses) was 
not sufficient inducement to any one to accept the position. 

' 2 Territorial Laws, 695. ' Ibid., 774, 775, 

* 3 Territorial Laws, 950. In addition to the former provisions for leases, 
these commissioners were by this law authorized "to lease ... or to manage 
and conduct the same in any other way they shall consider best calculated to 
enhance the value thereof," — that is, to give improvement leases. 
* Ibid., loi 2-1020. 



88 Land Grants for Educatio7i in the [i6o 

During these years many of the school lands were leased by 
the township authorities and produced small incomes. 

The movement toward a State government began in 1832, 
and finally culminated in 1835, in advance of any authority 
from Congress, in the meeting of a convention and the 
adoption of a State constitution. An account of the subse- 
quent negotiations and the action of Congress, so far as 
concerns the question of education, has already been given.^ 
It is only necessary to repeat here that the sixteenth sec- 
tions were granted in 1837 '^ ^^ the State for the use of 
schools." This change from the terms of the ordinance of 
1785 and the act of 1804 enabled the Legislature to assume 
the entire management of the lands and funds, without the 
intervention of any local authorities. It also obviated the 
necessity of keeping separate the fund of each township, 
and permitted the whole of the proceeds to be consolidated 
into one State fund. It removed all occasion for a numerous 
crowd of local officials, greatly sim.plified the management 
of the trust, and lessened expenses. The question of the 
right of Congress thus to make a change which deprived the 
inhabitants of the individual townships of the exclusive 
avails of their own school section was often debated in the 
early days of the State, but is hardly worth discussion now.'^ 

The constitution of 1835 provided that "The proceeds of 
all lands granted by the United States to this State for the 
support of schools, which shall hereafter be sold or disposed 
of, shall remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which, 
together with the rents of all such unsold lands shall be 
inviolably appropriated to the support of schools throughout 
the State." ^ It also provided for the appointment by the 
Governor of a Superintendent of Public Instruction whose 
duties should be defined by the Legislature.* The first 
Legislature passed an act under which the Superintendent 
was given immediate charge of all lands in townships where 
no commissioner had been elected.^ He was also instructed 
to draw up and report to the next Legislature (i) a system 
for the organization and establishment of common schools 

* Szipra, 38. "^ See Shearman, 15. ^ Article X., Sec. 2. 

* Article X., Sec. i. ^ Mich. Laws, 1835-6, 49. 



i6i] Northwest Territory. 89 

and a university; (2) an inventory of all educational lands 
and property, their condition and location ; and (3) his views 
relative to the further disposition of the lands. On the same 
day that this act was passed the Governor nominated to the 
ofifice Rev. John D. Pierce, to whom more than to any other 
man is due the excellent school system of Michigan. 

In pursuance of his instructions the Superintendent in 
January, 1837, submitted an elaborate and comprehensive 
report covering all the subjects referred to him. So much 
of the report as touches upon the management of the land 
grant demands attention. He recommended that the charge 
of all the lands and the investment of the moneys arising 
from them should be given to the Superintendent, subject to 
legislative direction. Starting with the assertion that " that 
disposition of the school and seminary lands will be the 
wisest and best which will ultimately yield to the State 
for the support of public schools the greatest amount of 
revenue," he discussed the relative advantages of leasing and 
selling.' His conclusion was that the lands should be sold 
" gradually as the wants of the country and a sound discre- 
tion may seem to warrant." If by this it was also meant that 
unsold lands should be leased, as far as practicable, on short 
leases, the general theory of the Superintendent was wise. 
Its weak point lay in the fact that the " sound discretion " 
presupposed is too rare a quality to afford any absolute 
security that it will be exercised when needed. 

Whether the immediate sale of any portion of the lands 
was expedient rests upon practical considerations. The 
country was then in a period of speculation. Immigration 
was large, prices were high, and real estate was selling rapidly. 
These facts undoubtedly influenced the views of the Super- 
intendent. Then too, in some of the more thickly settled 
portions of the State the school lands had under previous 
leases received some degree of cultivation, and under the 
existing demand were sure to command high prices. On 
the whole it was perhaps wise to dispose of a limited amount 
of the lands, and to lease the remainder until they should 
reach a value at which sound wisdom would advise their sale. 

' Senate Journal, 1837, Appendix, Document 7. 



go Land Grants for Education in the [162 

The detailed plan presented by the Superintendent seemed 
likely, if adopted, to produce a large ultimate fund. He 
proposed that a minimum price of five dollars per acre be 
placed upon the land and that only a limited amount be put 
upon the market at that time.' He would invest the pro- 
ceeds by loaning them to such of the counties as desired to 
borrow, in sums of five or ten thousand dollars at seven per 
cent, interest, any surplus above the needs of the counties to 
-be loaned to individuals on mortgages."" 

The Legislature studied this report with great care, and 
approved the main features of the plan proposed. In March, 
1837, a law was adopted covering the whole subject. The 
Superintendent of Public Instruction was authorized to take 
charge of all educational lands in the State and to make 
sales to the amount of one and a half million dollars, at 
public auction for not less than eight dollars per acre.^ Loans 
of the proceeds were to be made as suggested by the Super- 
intendent, and any unsold lands were to be leased for not 
more than three years. The income was to be distributed 
among the townships of the State in proportion to the 
number of children between five and seventeen years of age." 
The law also required the Superintendent to make in each 
■annual report a statement of the condition of the university 
and school funds. ^ During the next nine months over thirty- 
four thousand acres were sold at an average price of a little 
less than twelve dollars per acre." 

^ Ibid., 70. 

"^ His estimate of tlie amount and value of the lands is interesting for purposes 
■ of comparison. Of the 1,148,160 [1,067,397] acres he considered one fourth as 
waste land. The remainder in the lower peninsula he graded into several 
classes, worth from four to fifteen dollars per acre respectively, while those in 
the upper peninsula "will bring one million dollars." The total estimated 
value was $4,850,000. He cautiously added: "Much must depend on the 
adoption of wise councils \sic\ and good management." — Ibid., 71-73. 

' Purchasers were to pay one fourth in cash and the remainder at stated 
periods, with interest. As amended three months later one tenth only was to 
be paid in cash and the balance in nine annual payments with interest. Secu- 
rity was to be taken for future payments when it was deemed necessary. — Mich. 
Laws, 1837, 316. * Ibid., 20(). ^ Ibid., 212,. 

^Senate Docs., 1838, 43, 44. The Superintendent's "safe estimate" this 
year was that the ultimate fund would be $5,983,264. 



163] Nort Invest Territory. 91 

This auspicious beginning afforded no premonition of the 
disappointment in store for those who believed that a happy 
and permanent solution of the land problem had been found. 
The law had not been in force a year before the first attempt 
was made at its overthrow. A petition was presented to the 
Legislature in 1838 from the inhabitants of one township in 
the State praying for a reduction of the price of lands in that 
township. The ground of the plea was simply that at the 
established price the lands would not sell immediately, 
whereas their speedy sale and occupation was a matter of 
material interest to the township. No mention was made of 
what might be for the advantage of the schools ! No such 
minor matter was thought of by the good people who signed 
the petition. The Legislature declined to inaugurate a 
system of special laws for the benefit of particular localities, 
and refused to grant the petition.' At this session the 
Legislature repealed the law authorizing loans to individuals 
in the evident expectation that the counties would desire to 
borrow the whole.' 

Troubles far more serious soon arose. The sales decreased 
during the next two years, and the average price received 
was not far above the minimum established by law.^ Many 
of the earliest purchasers also failed to pay the instalments 
of purchase money and interest due under their contracts.^ 
A single cause was responsible for all these things. The 
financial embarrassment following the crisis of 1837 was 
general throughout the country. Prices had fallen and 
every one had difificulty in meeting his obligations. The 
Legislature in 1839, ^^ the suggestion of the Governor, ex- 
tended the time for the payment of instalments of purchase 
money due under previous contracts.* This act, suggested 
by good motives, was the beginning of a long line of relief 

' The reasons given in the Legislature for denying the petition were that 
though those particular lands might not then command the legal minimum, they 
soon would, and that the township must " submit to a temporary inconvenience 
which will ultimately be productive of the general good." — House Documents, 
1S38, No. 21. 2 Mich. Laws, 1838, 233. 

^Senate Documents, 1839, 232 ; 1840, I., 22, 23. 

■• Senate Documents, 1839, 230. * Mich. Laws, 1S39, I3' 



92 Land Grants for Education in the [164 

legislation which ended in dire disaster to the school funds. 
In the next year the Legislature supplemented it by extend- 
ing the time for the payment of interest then due on the 
land contracts, thereby declaring that purchasers should not 
yet forfeit their lands even though they made no payments 
for a time/ 

The other disappointment — the striking decrease in the 
sales — was a direct result of the financial depression, but was 
considered by a few members of the Legislature in 1839 ^■s 
affording ground for a reduction in the established price. 
Though the project was urged by numerous petitions, it 
found little favor in the Legislature.'^ A year later the 
matter again came up. Another instalment of petitions was 
forwarded to the Legislature. This time, however, the 
question was of a reduction in the price not only of unsold 
lands, but also of those which had been sold and on which 
partial payments had been made. It is needless to say that 
this last scheme was vigorously urged by the purchasers. 
The committee to whom the projects and petitions were 
referred, acknowledged that there had been a great deprecia- 
tion in the value of land, but thought it inexpedient to 
reduce the price of any unsold land. With reference to the 
lands already sold under contract they denied that it was 
properly within the power of the Legislature to afford relief 
to those who had voluntarily though perhaps unwisely pur- 
chased at high prices.^ The entire project failed for the 
time, though its advocates were many. 

In 1 840 no lands were sold for more than the minimum price, 
and it appeared that nearly one third of those previously 
sold had been forfeited for non-payment of the instalments 

1 Mich. Laws, 1840, 138. 

*From the report of a committee I find that the eminently sound reasons far 
making no reduction were that in the settled parts of the State even the poorer 
lands were selling for more than the minimum price, that those unsold would 
soon be worth that price, and that a reduction under such circumstances would 
be an injustice to the schools. Still the committee took the ground only that a 
reduction " at present " would be unadvisable, a position which boded evil in 
the future. — House Documents, 1839, ^88. 

* House Documents, 1840, II., 529, 530. 



165] Northwest Territory. 93 

due.* The Superintendent of Public Instruction now recom- 
mended that the price of unsold lands be reduced to five 
dollars per acre/ If immediate sale was the only object 
to be attained, the price was undoubtedly too high. The 
Superintendent had, however, several years before correctly 
stated that the true policy was that which would ultimately 
produce the greatest amount of revenue. The low price and 
the small demand for real estate from 1838 to 1841 was 
mainly a temporary result of the panic of 1837. When the 
depression had passed, prices again rose. Was this reduction 
then either necessary or expedient ? The Superintendent 
went even further in his suggestions. While he did not openly 
advocate relief to those who had already purchased, he ex- 
pressed his opinion " that a reduction in many cases would 
be both equitable and just." ^ Assuming that some such relief 
measure was likely to be adopted, he contented himself with 
suggesting points to be covered by it, instead of showing 
that it was no part of the duty of the Legislature to relieve the 
embarrassments of purchasers at the expense of a trust fund. 
With these recommendations before them, reinforced by 
numerous petitions, the Legislature lost its firmness. The 
minimum price of unsold lands was reduced to five dollars.* 
For the relief of past purchasers they enacted that any one 
who by the end of the next year should have paid twenty 
per cent, of the purchase money under his contract and all 
interest then due should not be required to pay any further 
instalment of principal, but simply annual interest on the un- 
paid balance." By suspending the payments of principal it 
was hoped that the interest would be paid without trouble 
or delay. These hopes were destined never to be realized. 
The purchasers having gained ground at nearly every move, 

' Senate Documents, 1841, I., 322, 375, 389. 

" " That the minimum price of unsold lands is too high there can scarcely re- 
main a doubt. Time, which corrects opinion, has shown that five dollars per 
acre for school lands is as high as they can be expected to sell." — Senate Docu- 
ments, 1841, I., 320. ^ Ibid., 321. ^ Mich. Laws, 1841, 157. 

* Ibid. To all future purchasers the same privilege was extended, save that 
they must pay twenty-five per cent, of the purchase money and interest on the; 
balance. 



94 Land Grants for Educatioji in the [i66 

were determined to accept nothing but a complete surrender 
to their demands. 

In 1 841 a new Superintendent of Public Instruction was 
appointed. His first report showed painful arrears in the 
payment of both principal and interest, and developed the 
fact that many who, under the terms of their contracts, had 
long since forfeited their lands, were still in undisturbed pos- 
session of them, though according to the Superintendent they 
never intended '' to pay another dollar either of interest or 
principal." ' In view of all these facts and the precedent estab- 
lished by relief measures already noted, he urged either a rigid 
enforcement of the implied intention of the relief law of the 
previous year by declaring forfeited all lands on which twenty 
per cent, should not have been paid by the date fixed in that 
law, or that the Legislature should adopt a system of gradu- 
ated reduction of prices on all lands already sold.^ 

The prayers for relief again poured in, and the time had 
finally come when this trust fund was to be sacrificed to the 
clamors of interested parties, on the sole and untenable 
ground that '' the State had driven a hard bargain with the 
parents of its wards," ^ which it would be ''legal extortion" 
to enforce.* A law was enacted in 1842 providing that the 
associate judges should, on application of the purchaser, 
examine any school land purchased at eight dollars an acre 
or over, and appraise its value in its actual condition at the 
time when it was first bought. The difference between this 
appraised value and the contract price was to be credited to 
the purchaser." The only proviso was, that the reduction 
should not be more than forty per cent, of the price originally 
named in the contract. This remarkable law permitted every 
one who had purchased school lands between 1837 and 1841 
to obtain his title by paying a lower price than he had 
voluntarily offered. Under its provisions the school fund 
was lessened over one hundred and seventy-five thousand 
dollars. The Legislature was, indeed, generous. The law 
reminds one of the provisions in Ohio by which lessees were 

* Joint Documents, 1842, 293. "^ Ibid., i<^\. ' Smith, 18. 

* Gregory, 7. * Mich. Laws, 1842, 44. 



167] Northwest Territory. 95 

permitted to purchase lands at old and low valuations. All 
that the most tender-hearted and weak-headed sympathy- 
could demand would have been yielded by permitting past 
contracts to be modified according to the true value of the 
land at the time of appraisement.' 

The victorious purchasers hastened to take advantage of 
this munificent gift, and many of them boasted openly of 
the bargains they had made at the expense of the schools.^ 
In the first year alone 26,117 acres, or one third of the 
amount sold up to that time, which had originally brought 
an average of over eleven dollars per acre, were reduced 
about thirty-six per cent, in price, and purchasers were 
credited over one hundred thousand dollars by virtue of the 
reduction.^ By January, 1843, the amounts originally con- 
tracted to be paid had been reduced by forfeitures and re- 
lief legislation from $711,000 to $474,000,* and the hopes 
entertained in past years were fast vanishing.* A rigid pro- 
vision for forfeiture in cases of non-fulfilment of contracts, 
adopted in 1842, brought prompter and fuller payments of 
principal and interest. The harm had, however, been done, 
and, dismayed by the results of the " retrospective " reduc- 
tion of prices, the friends of education indulged in vain re- 
grets. Too late did the evils attendant upon all relief legis- 
lation make themselves known." In later years this page 

' The law also permitted any previous purchaser to surrender any portion of 
the land he had bought, and retain the balance at the original price per acre. 
All previous payments were to be applied only in the part retained. This of 
course threw back upon the State only the poorest lands, and enabled the pur- 
chasers to pick out choice pieces which, taken by themselves, were unquestion- 
ably worth more than the contract price, 

' Joint Documents, 1843, 220. '^ Ibid., 211. "^ Ibid., 219. 

* " The seventy-eight thousand acres of school lands, once sold at an average 
price of nine dollars per acre, . . . have dwindled to sixty-nine thousand 
at an average price of less than seven dollars." — Ibid. 

^ ' ' The too high prices of other years, sad reverses of fortune, and the conse- 
quent failure to fulfil contracts, encouraged, too, beyond any doubt, by hopes of 
annual relief, have placed our educational funds in their present condition. The 
first relief-precedent has occasioned all the mischief ; for subsequent legislation 
has grown out of that. If the condition of forfeiture wisely put in the contract 
had been rigidly enforced, the consequences to individuals would have been less 
disastrous, and public disappointment less tantalizing. Certainly the forfeiture 
would at least have ensured prompt settlements." — Ibid., 220. 



96 Land Grants for Education in the [168 

from the history of the school fund has been screened from 
close observation, and the matter so glossed over that the 
whole transaction is made to appear a simple act of justice, 
the omission of which would have been a blot upon the 
honor of the State/ 

Another cloud now loomed up. On some of the loans 
made to counties and to individuals, no interest had been 
paid for some time, and it began to appear that the little 
fund left from the sacrifice was destined to further diminu- 
tion/ There was also found an apparent deficiency in the 
funds, owing to the looseness with which the accounts had 
been kept/ No charge of dishonesty was made, nor could 
any such accusation have been maintained for a moment. 
But the past losses, and the probability that others would 
occur, drew attention to this phase of the trust-fund problem. 

From the organization of the State the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction had been given charge of two distinct 
kinds of work. Appointed for his ability as an educator to 
look after the workings of the schools, he was also obliged 
to assume the management of a vast body of lands, to recom- 
mend laws, to sell lands, and to invest funds, — a work requir- 
ing the experience and constant care of a thorough business 
man. To attend to either of these two duties would have 
taxed any man ; to fulfil both properly was impossible. In 
the very first year after the office was created, the Governor 
had suggested the separation of the two lines of labor, and 
every succeeding Governor in every annual message had 
advocated the same change. The suggestion had been made 
at first on the ground simply that the duties imposed on the 
Superintendent were too arduous, but in 1843 ^^e tone was 
changed, and the intimation was plainly given that the fund 
would be managed more carefully if entrusted to other 
hands.* Minor evils undoubtedly existed, for which neither 

^ See, for example, the elaborate defence of the measure in Gregory, School 
Laws of Michigan, 1859, 6, 7. 

^ " A part of the money already received, it is feared, has been loaned upon 
insufficient security, and losses from other causes are apprehended." — Governor's 
Message, Joint Documents, 1843, 12. ^ Ibid., 216. 

■"" "It is believed that the condition both of the common school fund and the 



169] Northwest Territory. 97 

the Superintendent nor the system were directly responsible,' 
but the chief cause of much that had gone wrong was the 
law imposing upon the Superintendent, whose entire atten- 
tion was needed in setting in motion an excellent school 
system, an additional task for which he was not expected to 
have special qualifications, and certainly had little time. 

The Legislature finally recognized this, and in 1843 
created the office of Commissioner of Lands, to whom was 
entrusted the management of the school, university, and 
other State lands. The books of the Superintendent of 
Pubhc Listruction were turned over to him, and he was to 
conduct all sales of lands. Payments of principal and inter- 
est on the school or university fund were thereafter to be 
made to the State Treasurer.'' A system of accounting 
between the Auditor, Treasurer, and Commissioner was 
adopted, which served as a mutual check and preventive of 
error. 

The Commissioner devoted himself arduously to his work. 
The accounts were straightened out as far as possible, and 
the records of past transactions put in proper form. The 
condition of the unsold lands was also inquired into and the 
discovery made that many of them had been occupied for 
years by " squatters " who paid no rent. Few, if any, lands 
had been leased by the Superintendents. In view of these 
facts the Legislature authorized the Commissioner to instruct 
the supervisors of the different townships to lease any unsold, 
improved lands from year to year.' In order better to pro- 
tect the State in case of forfeitures of contracts, all future 
purchasers were required to pay one fourth of the purchase 
price at the time of purchase, instead of one tenth as had 

university fund might be improved, and their productiveness increased by com- 
mitting their care to some other officer than the Superintendent of Public In- 
struction. . . . The interests of the State are not sufficiently protected by 
existing enactments in relation to the fiscal duties of the Superintendent. . . . 
The Superintendent makes important sales, and from time to time receives large 
sums of money, as well of principal as of interest, while no documents exist 
accessible to other State officers by which the condition of his accounts can be 
ascertained. Years and years may elapse before even his successor can know 
his defaults. " — Joint Documents, 1843, 14-15. 

• Ibid.., 223, 224. * Mich. Laws, 1843, 44-52. 'Mich. Laws, 1844, 86, 87. 



98 Land Grants for Education in the [170 

been required before. The improvements on any unsold 
lands were thereafter to be appraised by the township super- 
visors, and the minimum price of such lands was to be 
increased accordingly/ 

In 1843, ^^d again in 1844, numerous petitions were pre- 
sented asking for a further reduction of the price of all unsold 
educational lands. The project was urged in a most plausi- 
ble form, but the Legislature did not yet permit itself to 
make another move in this direction. Many of the members 
were determined that no rash step should be taken to hasten 
sales when by a little delay the lands would be rapidly taken 
at the existing prices. They looked upon the rights and 
privileges of succeeding ages as equally sacred with those of 
their generation.^ How soon were these correct but un- 
popular notions overridden ! 

In 1845 the Commissioner recommended that the State 
internal-improvement warrants be received in payment for 
school lands.' As these warrants bore interest the adoption 
of the suggestion would have enabled the State to redeem 
its outstanding obligations while it ensured to the schools an 
income on the fund. This scheme was not formally adopted, 
but the Treasurer was authorized to pay seven per cent, 
annual interest on certain treasury notes and scrip taken in 
payment for school lands.* The arrangement was designed 
to be only temporary,^ but through it the State drifted into 
the policy of borrowing the school funds for its own use, and 
paying annual interest from the treasury upon the loans. At 
about this time further loans to the counties were suspended." 

1 Ibid. 

''' " It would be far better to hold the lands and thus secure increased value to 
the fund than to sell them now though we might derive [a greater] amount of 
interest. In one case we have the increase as a permanent fund for all future 
time. In the other it is received as interest and distributed throughout the State 
as fast as received, . . . While we look out well for to-day we must take care 
that we do not endanger the rights and privileges of those who are to follow 
us." — From the Report of the Committee on School Lands. House Documents, 
1844, No. 10. ^ Joint Documents, 1846, No. 3. 

^ Mich. Laws, 1845, 148, * Senate Documents, 1846, No. 6. 

® Of the early loans made to individuals about twelve thousand dollars were 
never repaid, nor was the interest met. Though the State held mortgages as, 



171] Northwest Territory. 99., 

By 1850 the State had borrowed the entire primary-school 
fund and in the new constitution adopted in that year, this 
procedure was formally accepted as a permanent policy, and 
the specific taxes levied by the State were applied to the 
payment of the interest/ Whether it is a wise policy for a 
State which does not need to borrow, to adopt this method 
of investing its school fund, thereby necessitating perpetual 
taxation to meet the interest, is a question well worthy of 
consideration. 

In 1846 the minimum price of school lands was reduced to 
four dollars per acre" in the face of a direct showing that the 
sales at the existing price were increasing each month/ The 
motive for this act is locked in the breasts of those who passed 
it. There were no new petitions asking for it, and in the 
following year, before the act came into effect, the Commis- 
sioner of the Land Ofifice, whose opinion was based on prac- 
tical knowledge of the subject, declared that if the price were 
again raised to five dollars the interests of the fund would be 
essentially promoted.* This protest of the Commissioner 
was of no avail and the law went into effect. 

Since that time only slight changes have been made in the 
law, though attempts to efTect a reduction in price have not 
been wanting. In 1846 all mineral lands belonging to the 
schools were reserved from sale, ^ and were offered on three- 
year leases.^ In 1863 they were placed on sale at a valua- 
tion made by the Governor and State Treasurer.'' Since 
1873 one half the purchase money has, in every sale of school 
lands, been required at the time of purchase, and for any 
timber land the Commissioner may require full cash payment 
at the time of sale. Sales have increased steadily since 
1846 with few interruptions, and about two thirds of the 
lands have been disposed of. As they have all been offered 
at public auction those still held by the State are, under the 

security for the loans, no steps were taken to foreclose them. With the excep- 
tion of one or two, cancelled by order of the Legislature, the mortgages stand 
to-day uncancelled on the records. — Smith, i8. 

' Constitution, 1850, Article XIV., Sec. I. * Joint Documents, 1847, No. 3. 

' Revised Statutes, 1846, 239. ^ Mich. Laws, 1846, 92. 

' Senate Documents, 1846, No. 23. ^ Ibid., 274. ' Mich. Laws, 1863, 277. 



100 Land Grants for Education in the [172 

law, subject to private entry at four dollars per acre. The 
good features of the management of the school sections in 
Michigan must be obvious ; the instances of bad laws and of 
lax enforcement of good laws have been sufficiently indicated. 
If the ultimate fund is likely to be much smaller than it 
should be, the people of Michigan may console themselves 
with the reflection that many of the older States have fared 
even worse. 

When the swamp lands were granted in 1850 the authori- 
'ties of Michigan did not consider them valuable or anticipate 
any revenue from them above the expense of drainage. 
Accordingly a law was adopted providing for their sale at 
seventy-five cents an acre, the proceeds of each sale to be 
used in reclaiming additional lands.' As the nature and 
amount of the grant became better known, it was seen that 
a large sum of money ought to be realized from it. For 
several years the successive Governors urged the Legislature 
to change the law of 185 1, raise the price of the lands, and 
apply some portion of the proceeds to educational uses.'^ 
These suggestions bore no fruit for several years, but finally 
in 1857 the previous law was repealed and the lands were 
ordered sold at a minimum price of five dollars per acre, 
the purchaser to assume the task of drainage. Of the net 
proceeds, seventy-five per cent, was to " constitute a part of 
the primary school fund of the State," while the remainder 
was to be used as a fund for reclaiming unsold lands. The 
•portion given to the school fund was to be borrowed by the 
State at seven per cent, interest, for the purpose of paying 
off other State indebtedness.' Why these " wet and over- 
flowed " lands should have been considered worth five 
dollars an acre, and the school lands valued at but four, is 
past comprehension. 

The educational provision met with hearty approval 

^ Mich. Laws, 1851, 322. ^ 

' The Agricultural College, the Normal School, and the primary schools were 
all suggested as proper beneficiaries of the fund. Governor Bingham sought to 
• avoid the co-educational problem by proposing the endowment of a college for 
,the education of young ladies. — ^Joint Documents, 1856, No. I. 

^ Mich. Laws, 1S57, 234. 



173] Northwest Territory. lOl 

throughout the State, but defects were found in the law 
which prevented the Land Commissioner from making any 
sales under it. ' The Commissioner argued that the price had 
been fixed too high,' and the Governor suggested that the 
proceeds be given to the infant Agricultural College, instead 
of the primary schools/ The law was amended in 1858 and 
the price reduced to one dollar and a quarter per acre, while 
only fifty per cent, of the moneys received from sales was to 
go to the school fund, and this the State was to borrow at 
five per cent, interest." Though these provisions were far 
less generous than those of the year before, a large fund 
would have resulted had this law remained unmodified. 
From the six million acres the schools would have received 
about three million dollars, after deducting expenses. Thus 
far the share of the schools has amounted to about three 
hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars," and ninety-five 
per cent, of the lands have been disposed of.^ 

The causes for this enormous shrinkage from the original 
estimate are simple. The law of 1858 provided that one half 
the proceeds of cash sales should be used as a school fund. 
Very few of the lands, however, have been sold for cash, while 
enormous quantities have been disposed of in such ways that 
no moneys have entered into the transaction, and in conse- 
quence no benefit accrued to the school fund. The schools 
had no prior or irrevocable claim to the benefit of the grant. 
No constitutional provision or act of Congress secured any 
portion of it to the cause of education. It was entirely within 
the power of the State, by a simple repeal of the law, to use 
the lands for other purposes not inconsistent with the terms 
of the grant. So long, however, as the law remained on the 
statute-book, its spirit as well as letter should have been ob- 
served. If the lands not sold for cash had been made to 
contribute to the material welfare of the State in any degree 
commensurate with their value, there would be no ground for 

' Joint Documents, 1857, No. 4, pp. 9, 10. "^Ibid. ''Ibid., No. i, p. 3. 

* This fund is known as the Primary School five per cent. Fund to distinguish 
it from that derived from the sixteenth sections. 

* Report Supt. of Pub. Instruction, 1881, xviii. 

* Circular No. i, State Land Office, 1S83. 



I02 Land Grants for Education in the [174 

complaint. It is, however, a notorious fact that thousands 
of acres have been practically thrown away. Some of the 
lands have been used to pay for various needed works of in- 
ternal improvement, some have been disposed of under a 
State homestead law, but from a great part of them specu- 
lators and private parties have derived more benefit than the 
State. The method by which this has been accomplished is 
as simple as it has been disastrous. Wagon roads and ditches 
were needed in many parts of the State, and the Legislature 
devised the scheme of paying for them with swamp lands. 
The construction of a road would be authorized, to be paid 
for in scrip redeemable in swamp lands at one dollar and a 
quarter per acre. The recipient could either locate land 
with the scrip, or could sell the latter to persons who desired 
to purchase lands. As the land thus located was not a cash 
sale on the part of the State the school fund under the law 
derived no benefit from the transaction. Further, as time 
progressed, so many of these roads were constructed and so 
much scrip was thrown upon the market, that its value de- 
preciated, often falling to seventy, sixty, and fifty cents on 
the dollar, and at no time for nlany years past selling at par, 
since the supply has always been in excess of the demand. 
The result has been that when any one has desired to pur- 
chase a tract of swamp land, instead of paying cash to the 
State at the established price per acre, he has bought scrip 
from some broker at the current price, and with it located 
his land. In this way he has been enabled to obtain good 
land at from sixty-five cents to one dollar an acre. Hardly 
one tenth of the entire grant has been sold at cash sale by 
the State, so that the school fund has in reality received the 
proceeds of only about one twentieth of the swamp lands. 

As already stated, if Michigan had received benefits in the 
shape of roads and other improvements equal to the value 
of the land disposed of, the mere fact that the schools have 
received so little aid would be no cause for complaint. But 
the actual state of the case is far otherwise. While some of 
these improvements have been needed and have been hon- 
estly constructed, it is not safe to investigate the majority of 



175] Northwest Territory. 103 

them lest symptoms of jobbery be detected. Dozens of 
roads have been ordered constructed where there was not at 
the time, and might not be for a decade or two, any need 
for them. Then when it came to the construction high 
prices have been paid for miserably built roads, some of 
which were in ruins almost before the scrip was located 
which was issued to pay for them. There can be no ques- 
tion that there has never existed in Michigan another such 
fertile field for the speculator to labor in, and the oppor- 
tunity has not been neglected.' Let no one infer that the 
Legislature has been corrupted. At the worst it has only 
been hoodwinked. The fault lies with the system which per- 
mitted lands to be disposed of by such methods. Further, 
the land was worth far more than one dollar and a quarter 
an acre. Much of it was pine land worth to-day in the 
original state as many dollars per acre as it cost the pur- 
chaser cents.^ 

In 1869 certain bodies of swamp land, then just patented 
to the State, were offered for sale at eight dollars an acre. 
The price of such of these as remained unsold was reduced 
two dollars at the end of each six months until it reached 
two dollars an acre, which was fixed as the permanent price.^ 
All other unsold swamp lands are offered at one dollar and a 
quarter per acre. " 

{i) WISCONSIN. 

From 1 818 until 1836 the region of country now known 

' The following is a simple illustration of the methods employed. A and B 
desire to earn an easy penny — perhaps two. A discovers a route where he 
thinks a new road can be built, and he interests himself in getting the people 
of the locality to petition the Legislature to order it built. The act is passed. 
B steps in, gets the contract, builds a poor road, receives pay for a good one, 
and A and B divide the scrip. Perhaps they even seek for an opportunity to 
repeat the operation. 

* A gentleman who is perhaps as familiar with the subject as any one in 
IMichigan informed the writer not long since that, in his opinion, the State 
might have derived fifty million dollars from the grant. 

' Mich. Laws, 1869, 164. 

* Ibid. Compare the excellent record of Wisconsin in handling her swamp 
lands. — Infra, 114. For the history of the saline lands of Michigan see page 
154, note. 



I04 Land Grmits for Education m the [l?^' 

under the name of Wisconsin formed a part of the Territory 
of Michigan. All laws adopted by the territorial authori- 
ties, between those dates, were applicable to the entire 
country between the Detroit River and Lake Huron on the 
east, and the Mississippi River on the west. Such of these 
as pertain to the school lands have already been mentioned.^ 
In 1836 the separate Territory of Wisconsin was created, 
but all previous laws were to remain in force until changed 
by the legislative authority of the new Territory.'^ In the 
first territorial Legislature of Wisconsin a resolution was 
offered asking Congress to give to the Territoiy, in place of 
the sixteenth sections, their cash v^lue at the government 
price of land. Fortunately the wisdom of the Legislature 
prevented the passage of this foolish proposition. In 1837 
provision was made for the election of township commis- 
sioners of schools, who in addition to other duties were to 
lease the school lands. In 1839 "^ ^^w was enacted "to es- 
tablish common schools," providing among other things for 
the election of school inspectors in each township or school 
district, whose business it should be " to lease the school 
lands in their respective towns or districts for a term not ex- 
ceeding three years," the rents to be applied toward the sup- 
port of local schools.^ In the followingyear the powers of the 
inspectors over school lands were again transferred to the 
township school commissioners,* and the period of the leases 
was cut down to two years,^ only to be extended to four 
years in 1842.^ In all these cases the rents were to be ap- 
plied to the support of schools in the townships in which 
they accrued. Under this law lands were leased until the 
admission of the Territory as a State in 1848. 

By the constitution of the State and the subsequent 
agreement of the United States'^ the common schools received 
as an endowment, in addition to sections sixteen, five hun- 
dred thousand acres of land,^ and five per cent, of the net 
proceeds of all public lands in the State, sold after Its ad- 

1 Supra, 87. " 5 U. S. Stat., lo. ' Wis. Stat., 1839, 137. 

* Compare Mich. Laws, 1832 ; supra, 87. 'Territorial Laws, 1840, 80. 

® Territorial Laws, 1842, 45, ''Supra, 40* 

® In most other States these had been granted for internal improvements. 



1/7] Northwest Territory. 105 

mission. The proceeds arising from these and a few other 
sources were to constitute a perpetual fund of which only 
the income was to be used for the purposes specified/ 

The people of Wisconsin did not repeat the error com- 
mitted in Michigan of imposing upon the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction the care and management of the lands 
and funds. Leaving to that officer the supervision of edu- 
cational matters, the constitution entrusted the sale of the 
school and university lands and the investment of the pro- 
ceeds to a board of commissioners consisting of the Secre- 
tary of State, Treasurer, and Attorney-General.'^ The dis- 
cussion of the perplexing question of leases and sales was 
also avoided by a constitutional provision that the lands 
should be sold after their value had been appraised,^ Thus 
Wisconsin sought by constitutional restrictions and direc- 
tions to avoid some of the troubles which other States had 
experienced from the vacillating policy of uncontrolled and 
unrestrained legislation. 

At the first session of the Legislature steps were taken to 
locate the five hundred thousand acres,* and for the appoint- 
ment of appraisers in every county to appraise the value of 
the sixteenth sections and the university lands.^ Upon 
the receipt of the report of the appraisers the Legislature 
ordered the lands to be sold at auction for not less than the 
appraised value. The land commissioners were authorized 
to loan the proceeds to individuals, in amounts not exceed- 
five hundred dollars, for not longer than five years, at seven 
per cent, interest." In the following year provision was 
made for the appraisal and sale of the five hundred thousand 
acres which had been located in 1849. In this law it was 
provided that any actual settler upon the lands at the time 

' Constitution, Art. X., Sec. 2. " Ibid., Art. X., Sec. 8. 

" Ibid., Art. X., Sec. 7. * Wis. Laws, 184S, 42. 

^ Ibid., 123. It was roughly estimated by a Senate committee in this year 
that the lands situated in the surveyed portion of the State were worth three dol- 
lars per acre, but the appraisers in their report give the average value at $3.66 
per acre. — Assembly Journal, 1850, 499, 500. Superintendent Root in 1850 
estimated that the fund would eventually amount to about five million and a 
half dollars. — Whitford, 39. * Wis. Laws, 1849, 149. 



io6 Land Grants for Educatio7i in the [178 

they were located for the State should have the right to 
purchase at one dollar and a quarter per acre.' This recog- 
nition of " squatters " was perhaps no more than equitable 
when applied to those whose '' claim " to the lands was older 
than that of the State itself, for the latter with proper care 
might have avoided selecting such lands. 

In the following year, however, this right of preemption 
was extended to any actual settler on the lands.^ Whatever 
moral obligation rested on the State was fully removed by 
the law granting to previous occupants the right to purchase 
at the United States Government price regardless of the 
actual value of the lands. The reasons for throwing the 
lands open at that price to all who should choose to settle 
on them are not based on any claims of justice, but on a 
peculiar State policy. The wisdom of the policy remains to 
be considered. The whole history of Wisconsin discloses a 
solicitude on the part of the State to attract immigrants.' 
This disposition, natural in any State, is praiseworthy, pro- 
vided no other trusts and interests are thereby prejudiced. 
When, however, a State, for the purpose of increasing her 
population deliberately parts with lands given to her for 
other special and important objects, at a price below their 
actual value, she certainly violates, if not the letter, at least 
the spirit, of the trust imposed on her. Wisconsin sought 
and obtained an enormous grant for school purposes, and 
after obtaining it, by so administering it as to assist in pro- 
moting an entirely different object, confessedly sacrificed the 
interests of the schools.* 

In 1852 the minimum price of the five hundred thousand 
acres was fixed at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, 
except where the appraised value was higher. After having 
been offered for sale at public auction they were to be open 
to private entry." In the same year certain unappraised 

^ Wis. Laws, 1850, 193. ^ Wis. Laws, 1851, 26. ° See infra, i^Z, note 6. 

* Governor Fairchild said in 1871 : " The educational funds have suffered 

this loss in order to hasten the settlement of the localities in which the lands 

were situated. This is not right. They were held in trust by the State to be 

disposed of honestly and judiciously for the benefit of the educational funds." 

Governor's Message, 1871, 6. ' Wis. Laws, 1852, 12. 



179] Northwest Territory. 107 

school lands were ordered to be appraised at not less than 
one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.' By these various 
measures the Legislature threw into the market far in ad- 
vance of the needs of the schools the greater part of the 
school lands in the State, at a day when many of them were 
in the woods, perhaps miles from any settlement. ^ The 
only limitation imposed by the State was that the lands 
should not be appraised at less than the price of govern- 
ment lands. It was not to be expected that the appraisers 
going into the back country would appraise a school section 
at a higher value than that at which all the surrounding land 
could be purchased from the national government, and in 
most instances they did not.' Though, in some instances 
lands appraised at this low valuation brought at public 
auction prices far above that valuation, much of the land 
was offered at auction without being sold. This would seem 
at first thought, to imply that it was not worth the valua- 
tion. But the matter is presented in a different light when 
it is considered that all lands once offered at auction and not 
sold are thereafter subject to private sale at the appraised 
or minimum price." Speculators desiring to purchase blocks 
of land had simply to ascertain what lands had been offered 
at auction, and to select from these at the appraised value. 

' Ibid., 211. 

' ' ' Great loss has been sustained through the haste with which the school 
lands have been brought into the market. The lands generally having been 
situated in the new and unimproved parts of the State," etc. — Report of " Joint 
Select Committee to Investigate the OfiSces of the Land Commissioners." 
Senate Jour., 1856, II., Appendix, 31. 

'" The lands . . . have seldom been appraised higher than ten shillings 
per acre — the government price. They have been brought into market at 
low appraisements and rapidly sold on account of the credit given, whilst the 
lands of the government remain undisposed of." — Ibid. 

" Past experience is discouraging of the practicability of obtaining an ap- 
praisement regarding singly the increase of the funds to be derived from the 
sales of these lands." — Report of Land Commissioners, i860, 38. 

* ' ' The lands once offered at public auction are by law subject to private 
entry and the amount to be sold to any one person is not limited . 
since the more rapidly sales can be effected so much sooner will these funds 
realize the benefit of the endowment. . . . And, if in the end only the ap- 
praised value is to be obtained, the sooner the lands are sold the better." — Re- 
port of Land Commissioners, 1854, 9. 



lo8 Land Grants for Education in the [i8o 

This state of affairs instead of occasioning the thought that 
the school fund was being sacrificed, caused alarm lest the 
lands should be bought by those who would not settle on 
them, and the population of the State would not increase as 
was desired.' 

In 1855 the Legislature decided to check this vast specu- 
lation. There were two methods of accomplishing this. 
The price of the lands might be raised, or a limit might be 
placed on the amount to be sold to any one purchaser. 
The former method would stop speculation by making it 
no longer profitable ; the latter, by making it impossible oa 
any large scale. One method would make the ultimate 
school fund larger ; the other would not affect the final fund, 
while, by retarding the sales, it would make the immediate 
income smaller. The Legislature in its wisdom chose the 
latter, and, leaving the price as it stood, permitted sales 
thereafter to actual settlers only, and to these but a limited 
quantity might be sold.^ Again the promotion of immigra- 
tion had triumphed over the claims of education. 

Soon, however, the opinion was expressed that the diffi- 
culty had been attacked at the wrong end. Rumors also 
became rife that the Land Commissioners had not labored 
entirely in the interests of the fund. The Legislature of 
1856, heeding these rumors, appointed a committee to in- 
vestigate the condition of the lands and funds, the system 
of laws in force, and the administration of those laws. The 
committee made a careful investigation, found much to con- 
demn and little to approve in the system itself, and disclosed 
some "peculiar" transactions in the administration of the 
affairs of the office." They found that speculators had 
bought up large quantities in order to reap the profit which 
should have accrued to the benefit of the fund, thus showing 
that the policy of offering lands at low prices in order to 

^ V It is for the Legislature to consider whether there are reasons relative to 
the promotion of other i7tterests than those of the school fund, and the system of 
common schools relying upon it for support, sufficient to induce the adoption of 
a policy limiting and restricting the sales of these lands." — Ibid. 

' Wis. Laws, 1855, 23. 

^See the Report in Senate Jour,, 1856, II., Appendix. 



i8i] Northwest Territory. 109 

induce purchasers had not accomplished its object, while it 
had ruinously reduced the ultimate school revenue." The 
discovery was also made that State officers and employes 
of the Land Department, whose official duties gave them an 
intimate knowledge of the subject, had, previous to the law 
of 1855, bought up hundreds of acres of these lands, knowing 
that in a very few years they would be worth twice or thrice 
the purchase price.* Could any better proof that the price 
was too low be desired ? The committee urged that the 
whole policy of the State be changed, and that, as the 
schools needed no immediate increase of the fund, the 
unsold lands be withdrawn from the market until the gov- 
ernment lands in their vicinity should have been sold, " and 
until the further withholding of them would be a serious 
obstruction to the settlement of the country." They ac- 
cordingly reported a bill repealing all laws for the sale of 
school and university lands. Even with this plain statement 
of facts before them, the Legislature refused to pass the 
measure, and the sales continued on the old terms. 

In April, 1863, the limit on the amount of land which 
might be bought by a single purchaser was revoked,^ and 
on the very next day a law came into force reducing the 
price of all unsold lands which had once been offered for sale 
thirty-three per cent., provided the reduction did not carry 
the price below seventy-five cents per acre.* If the lands 
still unsold had been of a decidedly inferior quality, these 
two laws would demand no comment. Since, however, 
there were many good pieces among them, the striking 
change in policy inaugurated by these provisions gives rise 
to the suspicion that some other interest than that of the 
schools was being consulted. Such laws certainly do not 
bear on their face any evidence that the Legislature had in 
mind the prime — nay, the sole — object for which these lands 

' " The facts to be derived from our experience under the present system 
. , . show that the school lands have not fallen into the hands of those who want 
them for occupation, but are held by speculators in large quantities, ranging 
from five to seventy-five thousand acres, thus more effectually retarding their 
settlement than if held by the State." — Ibid., 31, 32. 

* Ibid., passim. ' Wis. Laws, 1863, 359. * Ibid., 431. 



.no Land Grants for Education in the [182 

were given. Perhaps, however, the State was merely indi- 
cating its desire to get rid of the remaining lands, and have 
done with the business. There were still a few lands in the 
remote parts of the State which had not been put upon the 
market. In 1864 the Legislature fixed the price of these at 
one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.^ Since that day 
few changes have been made in the terms of sale or in the 
prices, though the Legislature has more than once been 
urged to increase the latter and abandon the policy which 
has taken from the schools a large portion of the value of 
the grant."^ The prices in 1872 ranged from a dollar and a 
quarter to a dollar and a half per acre, but by the statute of 
1878 they were fixed at one dollar and one dollar and a 
quarter per acre,^ at which point they have since remained.* 
In 1878, and again in 1882, several thousand acres of these 
lands were withdrawn from the market and devoted to the 
State Public Park and other purposes.^ These enactments 
seem to be clear and unconstitutional diversions of the lands 
" from the original purposes for which they were granted." ' 
But one hundred and sixty-five thousand acres, or about 
eleven per cent, of the lands, remain unsold. '' 

The money derived from the five per cent, of the proceeds 
of public land sales in Wisconsin, which, by the State con- 
stitution, was made a part of the school fund, has been 
received from time to time by the proper State officials and 
incorporated with the proceeds of the land grant. Accord- 

' Wis. Laws, 1864, 514. 

'^ " Heretofore these lands have been sold at too low a price per acre. This 
is not right. The State should be as prudent in selling these lands as is the in- 
dividual proprietor, who desires to make the most of them. . . . They are 
being purchased mainly by speculators, and the actual settlers, when they buy 
them, will have to pay the dealer a large profit which the funds ought to realize. 
The fact that speculators are eager to buy plainly shows that the lands are sell- 
ing for less than their value. Every dollar that they are worth to the settler 
ought to enure to the funds. I therefore recommend that all these lands be 
immediately withdrawn from the market, and that they be carefully appraised 
before any further sales are made." — Governor's Message, 1871, 6. 

^ Revised Statutes, 1878, Ch. 15, Sec. 202-206. 

* Report of Commissioner of Pub. Lands, Wis. , 1882, 4. 

* Report of Com. of Pub. Lands, 1880, 22, 23. 

"^ Ibid. '' Report, Secretary of State, 1882, 8. 



183] Northwest Territory. m 

ing to the books of the State, this five per cent, has 
amounted to $309,035.28/ The total school fund of Wis- 
consin is $2,813,045.58.'' Deducting the five per cent, fund 
and $75,000, as a near estimate of the payments to the 
school fund from fines and escheats,^ the proceeds of the 
school lands amount to $2,429,010.30, which gives one dollar 
and eighty-seven cents as the average price received per 
acre. 

Having thus traced the history of the disposition of the 
lands, it remains for us to see how the proceeds have been 
guarded. The law of 1849 provided that the moneys aris- 
ing from sales should be loaned to individuals in limited 
sums. This method of investing the funds, while theoreti- 
cally good for both the State and the borrowers, demands 
great care and much labor. In Indiana and Illinois such 
loans are made by local ofificials, who can know from personal 
investigation the character of the security, and are held re- 
sponsible for losses. In Wisconsin, the business was in the 
hands of a central board, who could not examine every 
piece of land offered as security, but must rely upon infor- 
mation derived at second-hand. As early as 1852, the 
Governor intimated that loans had been made upon insuffi- 
cient security, and expressed his disapproval of the system 
as apt to result in frequent losses, which, though small in 
themselves, would, in the aggregate, amount to a large sum.* 
No attention was given to the suggestion and the system 
continued. The school lands sold rapidly at the low prices, 
and hundreds of thousands of dollars were loaned b.y the 
commissioners to individuals in all parts of the State. Only 
partial payments were required on the lands sold, and 
mortgages were taken to secure the balance. For several 
years no further question was raised concerning these loans, 
and it was not until 1856 that a definite idea of the condi- 
tion of the funds was obtained by any one except the com- 

' Letter of Secretary of State, May i6, 1884. The books of the United States 
Treasury give the amount as $455,253.73. How the discrepancy arose, and 
which statement is right, I have been unable to learn. See Document A, 
238. * Report, Secretary of State, 1882, 9, 10. 

^ See Appendix, Table A. * Governor's Message, 1852, 2i. 



112 Land Grants for Education in the [184 

missioners. In that year, the special committee to which 
reference has already been made/ in the course of their in- 
vestigations, found that many losses had occurred, and that 
not only had many loans been made upon insufficient 
security, but in some cases this had been done with the con- 
nivance of the commissioners themselves.'' This report did 
not bring about any change. In i860 a new set of commis- 
sioners came into office and soon called attention to the 
subject.^ By this time the losses had amounted to twenty- 
five per cent, of the loans.* The opinion was general that 
loans on mortgages were unsafe, even when all due precau- 
tion was exercised, and that the carelessness and connivance 
of the commissioners had only increased the losses.^ It 
seems inexplicable that a system should have been permitted 
to remain so long in force which authorized the Commis- 
sioners to loan money to strangers upon securities of whose 
value they had no evidence but the opinion of other 
strangers.* Such investment of capital would never be made 
by any individual, nor is it conceivable that any trustee of a 
private estate would be upheld by the courts in such a pro- 
cedure.' 

In 1862, on the recommendation of the Commissioners, it 
was ordered that the school funds be invested in State bonds 
in preference to all other investments.® As Wisconsin, Hke 

"^ Supra, 108. 

2 Tens of thousands of dollars of this fund have been embezzled and hun- 
dreds of thousands lost or squandered." — Senate Journal, 1856, II., Appen- 
dix, 34. 

* Report of Commissioners of School and University Lands, i860, 58. 

■i House Journal, 1861, 570. President Whitford says, somewhat ambigu- 
ously : " The loss to this fund, during the first ten years of our State adminis- 
tration, was a large part of $732, 34°. " — Whitford, 30. 

^ House Journal, 1861, 570. Also, Report of Commissioners of School and 
University Lands, 1861,3. 

6 " Would any prudent capitalist invest his own money in loans to men he 
did not know — taking security upon lands he never saw, with no better evidence 
of their value than the appraisement of two men of whom he knew nothing? " 
—Ibid. 

'' ** That system of management of a trust fund is radically defective, if not 
riminally wrong, which provides for investing it in any manner that exposes 
the fund to inevitable loss without any possibility of restoring it." — Ibid. 

^Wis. Laws, 1862, 53. 



185] Northwest Territory, 113 

nearly all the States, was compelled to borrow large sums 
at that time for war purposes, all moneys flowing into the 
school fund were readily invested in these State bonds. 
Under the circumstances, this was unquestionably the 
wisest investment possible, and guaranteed the school fund 
against loss. But the State, soon after the war, ceased bor- 
rowing money, and it was possible to obtain State bonds 
only by buying them at a premium. 

So far as practicable this was done, but the school funds 
soon exceeded the total amount of State indebtedness. The 
Legislature in 1866 made that portion of its indebtedness 
which was owned by the school fund a permanent irreduci- 
ble debt,* but wisely declined to borrow the money subse- 
quently flowing into the school and other educational funds, 
and thereby impose upon the people a perpetual burden of 
taxation to meet the interest. Accordingly, as some other 
form of investment must be found, the Commissioners were 
authorized iri* 1868 to purchase United States bonds,* and in 
1 87 1 were further empowered to loan funds to school dis- 
tricts for the purpose of erecting school buildings.' This 
latter method was found to involve some of the same diffi- 
culties and delays in payment as had been experienced in the 
case of individual loans,* and has not been extensively em- 
ployed. In 1872 authority was given to invest in Milwaukee 
City bonds.* This act has been followed by many similar 
ones, authorizing loans in large sums to various cities and 
counties in the State.® While the laws authorizing loans to 
individuals were never repealed, few such loans, if any, have 
been made during the past twenty years. About three 
fifths of the school fund is loaned to the State itself, — a 
permanent loan, — and the remainder is invested in United 
States, city, county, and school bonds, while a few loans to 
individuals are yet outstanding.'' This plan of investing in 
municipal and other public bonds seems to present fewer 
objections than any other. The time can hardly come when 

^ Wis. Laws, 1866, Chap. 25. 'Wis. Laws, 1872, Chap. 118. 
'Wis. Laws, 1868, Chap. iii. 'See Reports of Land Com., 1873-1883. 
*Wis. Laws, 1871, Chap. 42. '' Report, Com. of Public Lands, 1883,23. 
■* Report of Com. of Pub. Lands, 1872, 6. 



114 Land Grants for Education in the [i86 

good public securities cannot be found and purchased. Such 
bonds while often bearing low rates of interest are almost 
absolutely safe and require no care or labor on the part of 
the State. 

Since 1862 the funds have been carefully and safely in- 
vested, and had equal wisdom been displayed in the manage- 
ment of the lands, the course of the State during the past 
twenty years would merit the fullest approbation. Of the 
period from 1848 to 1862 a far different opinion must be 
held, and in so far as any comment is required, the words. 
of the Commissioners fully cover the case. " The State is 
bound for the preservation and application of this trust by 
every sentiment of gratitude and honor, and moreover by 
the promptings of interest and of duty to the people of the 
State themselves and to their posterity. Truth compels the 
confession that the trust has been most unfaithfully adminis- 
tered. The best of the school lands have been disposed of 
with eager haste and in disregard of the interest of the funds 
for which they were dedicated. Then the system adopted 
for the investment of the capital which has been realized to 
the funds from the sale of these lands subjects this capital to- 
waste and loss to a fearful extent." ' 

The constitution of the State provided that the moneys 
arising from all grants whose purpose was not specified 
should be added to the school fund.^ Accordingly, when 
the grant of swamp lands was made it was understood that 
the surplus proceeds should be so used. In 1856 the mini- 
mum price of these lands was fixed at five dollars per acre, 
except to previous settlers who were permitted to purchase 
one hundred and sixty acres at one dollar and twenty-five 
cents per acre. All others could purchase at public auction 
not to exceed three hundred and twenty acres each. Seventy- 
five per cent, of the net proceeds was to be placed in the 
school fund, and twenty-five per cent, was to constitute a 
drainage fund.* The establishment of so high a price and 
the limitation of the amount purchasable by a single indi- 

' Joint Documents, 1862 ; Report of Land Commissioners, 3. 

'Art X., Sec. 2. 'V^is. Laws, 1856, 112., 



187] Northwest Territory. 115 

vidual is to be attributed to the report of the committee, 
already alluded to, which so strongly condemned the policy 
of low prices and unlimited sales of school lands. This law 
did not long remain in force. The Commissioners of Lands 
argued with great plausibility that such high prices were 
unwise as the lands would not sell, and urged that competi- 
tion at public auction would easily determine and produce 
the proper price of each parcel.' Notwithstanding that the 
past unhappy experience had shown that competition did 
not produce sales at the true value, and that the commis- 
sioners were not always disinterested in their advice, the 
Legislature reduced the minimum price to one dollar and 
twenty-five cents per acre. All lands were still to be offered 
at public auction, but any settler might preempt at the 
minimum price.* 

Two days later, under a provision of the constitution never 
before carried into effect, ^ the income of twenty-five per 
cent, of the gross proceeds of the sales was diverted from 
the common schools and directed to be apportioned " to 
normal institutes and academies," and to be distributed to 
such academies and union or high schools as should main- 
tain a normal department or institute.* In the following 
year it was provided that the normal-school fund should con- 
sist of twenty-five per cent, of the net proceeds of the lands.^ 
At the same time the drainage fund having proved too 
small another twenty-five per cent, was devoted to that 
project. ° This left twenty-five per cent, of the proceeds 
applicable to the school fund and twenty-five per cent, to 
the normal-school fund. 

' " We are clearly of the opinion that by offering the lands at a public sale 
where a fair and just competition may be reasonably expected among the pur- 
chasers, all the tracts will sell for what they are really worth." — Report of 
Land Commissioners, 1856, 29. ^Act of March 5, 1857. 

' The constitution provided that the income of the school fund should be 
" exclusively applied to the following objects, to wit : i. To the support and 
maintenance of common schools. ... 2. The residue shall be appropriated 
to the support and maintenance of academies and normal schools." Until 
this time there had been no "residue" beyond the needs of the common 
schools, and as a matter of fact the income has never yet been sufiScient to . 
" support and maintain " them. 

*Wis. Laws, 1857, 93. *Wis. Laws, 1858, 194. ^ Ibid., 68. 



ii6 Land Grants for Education in the [i88 

Sales were conducted in pursuance of this arrangement 
until 1865, when a radical change was made. Before con- 
sidering this it must be mentioned that in 1863 the price of 
all swamp lands once offered for sale at auction and unsold 
was reduced to seventy-five cents per acre/ and in the next 
year all swamp lands which had not hitherto been exposed 
to sale were offered at auction at one dollar and twenty-five 
cents per acre/ while the limit on the amount purchasable 
by a single individual was swept away/ The effect of these 
laws was to hasten the sales and also to throw the lands into 
the hands of speculators who reaped profits which might 
have been derived by the State. A greater danger to the 
fund proceeded, however, from another cause — the appro- 
priation of lands for the building of roads. This system was 
in vogue in Michigan, where it was flourishing most vigor- 
ously. The bills authorizing the construction of these roads 
were special acts and were often passed at the instigation of 
the " lobby " and in the interest of private parties.* 

The Legislature in 1865 devoted itself to the task of mak- 
ing a permanent disposition of the lands, in such a way as to 
remove the danger of their being squandered and thrown 
away.^ As the law stood only the proceeds of sales were 
pledged to the cause of education. The lands might be 
given away, or paid out for labor as in Michigan, without 
conflicting with any of the provisions for the school or 
normal fund. Now, however, the lands themselves and the 
proceeds of past sales, including all sums hitherto received 
in any way for the lands included in the grant, were divided 
into two equal parts, one of which was to constitute the 
normal-school fund and the other the drainage fund.^ De- 
tailed directions were given for the partition of the lands and 
moneys between the two funds, and it was provided that the 
lands belonging to the normal-school fund should be sold 
and the proceeds invested in the same manner as that pro- 

^Wis. Laws, 1863, 284. Wis. Laws, 1864, 180. ^ Wis. Laws, 1863, 359. 
* ' ' Local ' grabs ' and ' steals ' were being continually worked up against the 
swamp-land fund. One favorite method of attack was the building of State 
roads, etc., these measures being often only the sharp schemes of private 
.parties."— Salisbury, 44. "" Ibid. ''Wis. Laws, 1865, 643. 



189] -. Northwest Territory. 117 

vided for the sale and investment of the school fund. This 
measure effectually prevented any future inroads upon the 
lands devoted to education, and afforded an almost certain 
prospect that the ultimate fund would be large since the 
original grant was over three million acres. 

As the result of the division the normal-school fund re- 
ceived about six hundred thousand dollars in cash and 
obligations on land contracts, and about five hundred thou- 
sand acres of land already on sale, " with other lands not 
yet in the market." ' These last were swamp lands which 
the United States Government had not yet patented to the 
State, and comprised many thousand of acres. Many of 
these have since been turned over to the State authorities. 
In 1865 the prices ranged from seventy-five cents to one 
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and by numerous 
special acts passed since then, the prices in certain counties 
have been reduced to fifty cents per acre, presumably because 
of the inferior quality of the lands. In 1882 there remained 
unsold about four hundred and seventy-five thousand acres,' 
while the fund realized from lands sold amounted to $1,147,- 
071.58,' invested in State certificates, United States, and city 
bonds, and loans to counties and individuals. The man- 
agement of this fund has been excellent and presents a 
striking contrast to that of the other educational funds of 
the State. The prices at which the lands are held to-day 
are, however, too low, and should be raised. Many of them 
are rapidly increasing in value, and the benefit of the in- 
crease should certainly accrue to the fund.* 

B. — SEMINARY OR UNIVERSITY LANDS. 

{a) OHIO. 

The two townships stipulated for in the contract between the 
United States and the Ohio Company'* in 1787 "for the sup- 
port of a literary institution " were located in 1795.® By the 

■Salisbury, 48. 'Report, Land Commissioners, 1882, 6. ^ Ibid., 24. 

* See the suggestions of the Land Commissioners in their report for 1882, 
-28, 29. ^ Supra, 17. 

'Walker, 311. The lands selected were the present townships of Athens 
■and Alexander in Athens County, Ohio. 



ii8 Land Grants for Education in the [190. 

terms of the contract ' these lands were to be applied to the in-^ 
tended object in such manner as the Legislature of the State 
wherein the townships lay might think proper to direct. In 
1802 the territorial Legislature chartered the American West- 
ern University in the town of Athens, and vested the lands in 
the corporation *' for the sole use, benefit, and support of the 
University," granting to the trustees the power to lease 
them for any period not exceeding twenty-one years.^ With 
the object of attracting lessees the lands and all improve- 
ments made on them were declared forever exempt from 
territorial and State taxation. Though the trustees of the 
proposed university were named in the act they appear to 
have taken no steps to perfect the organization or to utilize 
the grant. 

At the first session of the State Legislature in 1803, com- 
missioners were appointed to appraise the lands and to report 
the result of their labors.^ In 1804, upon the receipt of this 
report, the Legislature, on the i8th of February, repealed 
the law chartering the American Western University, and in 
its place made provision for the establishment of Ohio Uni- 
versity at Athens.* To this institution the two townships 
were given ^ as an endowment, and minute directions were 
laid down for their management. The trustees were to 
appoint three disinterested freeholders to subdivide, estimate,, 
and value the lands in their original and unimproved state.* 
After this valuation was made, and after four weeks' notice 
" in the newspaper printed in Marietta," the trustees were 
to give to any applicants leases for ninety years, renewable 
forever, on a yearly rent of six per cent, on the amount of 
the valuation. The land so leased was to be subject to a 
revaluation at the end of thirty-five years, and again at the 

^Walker, Appendix C. ^Act of April i6, 1803. 

'' ^/W Walker, 312. ^2 Ohio Laws, 193. 

' Several of the trustees appointed for this university were among those 
named for the first one, and the new university was really the successor of the 
Other. 

° Some of them had been settled upon in the territorial days by pioneers who 
had made improvements and erected buildings. These settlers the Legislature, 
designed to protect by requiring the appraisal to cover only the original value o£' 
the lands, and permitting the occupant to lease at that valuation. 



191] Northwest Territory. 119 

expiration of sixty years, on each of which valuations the 
lessee was to pay a rent of six per cent, until the next was 
made. At the end of ninety years a final appraisal was to be 
made, which should thereafter serve as the basis of the rent. 
The State was never to tax the lands, but the university 
authorities were given power to lay an additional yearly rent 
equal to the amount of State tax " imposed on property of 
like description." This last provision was in effect to give 
to the university the State taxes upon those two townships, 
though the State did not undertake to collect them. 

This law was just and equitable in all respects, and during 
the ensuing year about twenty thousand acres, or nearly one 
half the entire grant, were applied for by occupants and 
others.' This certainly seemed a good beginning for the 
young institution. Governor Tififin, in his message to the 
next General Assembly, stated that the prospects were 
flattering, but added that " the settlers on these lands were 
induced to apply for leases under the impression that the 
Legislature would review the law and be governed by a more 
liberal policy." ° The revaluation clause was the feature of 
the law which created the notion of illiberality. The 
wisdom of such provisions has already been discussed. But 
the Governor so far respected the " impression " of the 
settlers as to urge a modification of the law.' As the Gover- 
nor was an ex-officio trustee of the university the Legislature 
naturally assumed that his opinions on this subject were 
worthy of consideration, and accordingly proceeded to 
modify the law of the previous year. It was now enacted * 
that the land should be appraised by men named in the law 
" at the present real value in its original and uncultivated 
state." The trustees were then to lease the same to any 

' Walker, 332, Note. "^ 3 House Jour., 8. 

' " Should it be thought that these lands ought to be valued at a generous [to 
whom ?] price once for all, and leases be authorized to issue upon the payment 
of the legal interest yearly, there can be no doubt that they would soon all be 
occupied, and from the sales of the town and outlets a sufficient sum would be 
raised to erect such buildings as may be immediately wanted, and that the rest 
[rents ?J of the lands and lots would be sufficient to support the university and 
answer every purpose for which the donation was originally made." — Ibid. 

*3 Ohio Laws, 79. 



120 Land Grants for Education m the [19^ 

persons, "who have applied or may apply," for ninety-nine 
years, with the privilege of renewal, at an annual rent of six 
per cent, on the appraised valuation. But no lands were to 
be leased on a valuation of less than one dollar and seventy- 
five cents per acre. 

The law contained no direct provision for revaluations at 
any future time, nor did it expressly do away with them, 
simply declaring that "so much of the act passed the i8th 
day of February, 1804, as is contrary to this act," was. 
thereby repealed. Were it not for the passage quoted from 
the Governor's message, there would seem to be no occasion 
for even a suspicion that there was a thought of repealing 
the only clause in the first law which really protected the 
interests of the university. In later years this question, 
whether the lands leased under the law of 1805 were subject 
to revaluation, occasioned a long and serious struggle be- 
tween the university and lessees. In 1807 the Legislature 
repealed the clause fixing the minimum value of the lands, 
and authorized the trustees to lease all lands at the appraised 
value, whatever it might be.' All were soon leased, but the 
trustees experienced such dif^culty in collecting the rents 
that for several years the Legislature authorized them to re- 
ceive payment in produce." In 1826, when the State adopted 
the policy of selling its educational lands, the trustees were- 
authorized to sell any unleased lands,^ and also to convey in 
fee-simple any leased lands upon payment by the lessee of 
the amount at which the land was valued when it was 
leased.* The impolicy of any provision of this nature has 
already been shown.^ Under this law about two thousand- 
acres have been sold and conveyed in fee.° 

In 1 841 the trustees took steps to revalue the lands in 
accordance with the law of 1804, which required a revaluation, 
at the expiration of thirty-five years. The lessees objected 
on the ground that this provision had been repealed by the 
later law of 1805. An issue was made upon a test case 

' 5 Ohio Laws, 85. * Walker, 338. 

^ A few lands had reverted to the university through the failure of the lessees, 
to pay the rent. 

* 24 Ohio Laws, 52. * Supra, 54. • Education in Ohio, 194. 



193] Northwest Territory. 121" 

which was argued before the Supreme Court of the State. 
The decision of the court was that, so far as the provision 
for revaluation was concerned, the two laws were not incon- 
sistent, hence that the lands were held subject to revaluation.* 
Defeated in the courts, the lessees besought the Legislature 
for relief," and with complete success, in spite of the fact 
that a majority of the committee to whom the matter was 
referred reported adversely. An act was passed declaring 
that the intent of the act of 1805 "was that the leases 
granted under and by virtue of said act, and the one to 
which that was an amendment, should not be subject to a 
revaluation at any time thereafter." ' The pressure brought 
to bear upon the Legislature in behalf of the lessees was 
enormous, though there is no evidence that any but legiti- 
mate arguments were used upon the members. The lobby 
in behalf of the bill is said to have been almost unrivalled in 
the history of the State.* In consequence of this strange 
though unfortunately legal interference of the Legislature 
no revaluations have been made, and nearly two townships 
of the choicest land in the State are rented upon a valuation 
m.ade seventy-five years ago when Ohio was a comparative 
wilderness. The rent from forty-four thousand acres is but 
forty-two hundred dollars per year.^ " The aggregate valu- 
ation of the university lands for taxation is $1,060,000, while 
the valuation for rental is scarcely $70,000." ^ 

' McYey et al vs. Ohio University, ii Ohio Reports, 134. 

"It has recently been brought to my attention that the struggle of the lessees 
of these lands against a revaluation and higher rent bore many resemblances to 
the present Irish agitation against rack-rents. It is stated that the lessees, 
accustomed for thirty years to pay a merely nominal rent of from 10^ to 12 
cents per acre, would not submit to a reappraisal ; that even after the legality 
of the reappraisal had been affirmed by the Supreme Court, it was impossible 
to collect the additional rent ; that whenever a suit was instituted the jury, in 
utter defiance of their oath, the law, and the evidence would uniformly render 
a verdict in favor of the lessee ; and that the bill mentioned above was lobbied 
through the Legislature and put an end to the contest. 

' 41 Ohio Laws, Local, 144. 

* The history of the case, with all the memorials and evidence of all kinds 
bearing on the question, is found in a small volume entitled " Revaluation of the 
Lands of Ohio University." Published for the lessees by N. H. Van Vorhees, . 
Athens, O., 1845. * Letter from Pres. W. H. Scott, April 30, 1883. 

* Education in Ohio, 198. 



122 Land Grants for Education in the [194 

The authority conferred upon the trustees in 1804 to col- 
lect an additional rent equal to the State taxes levied on 
similar property has not been exercised until recently. In 
1844 the trustees asked the Legislature to enforce the col- 
lection of this rent, but their request was not granted. In 
1875, after the occupants had for nearly three quarters of a 
century escaped from State taxation and any burden in lieu 
thereof, the Legislature passed an act requiring the trustees 
to demand and collect the additional rent for the support of 
the university.' In the following year the lessees, remem- 
bering their success in annulling the revaluation clause, 
petitioned the Legislature for relief from the tax clause, but 
all relief was refused. In June, 1876, the trustees took 
measures to collect this rent. The lessees applied to the 
courts for an injunction to restrain the trustees from taking 
further action, but failed in all the State courts. The mat- 
ter is now before the United States Supreme Court for 
decision. In the meantime, however, the rent is regularly 
collected, and its average amount is not far from three 
thousand dollars."" The total annual income from this grant 
of two townships is thus but about seven thousand two 
hundred dollars. Had the Legislature in 1843 resisted the 
importunities of the lessees, and refused to interfere with 
the laws as expounded by the highest judicial authority in 
the State, and had the trustees insisted on their rights, there 
is every reason to believe that the endowment of the univer- 
sity would be more than ten times its present size. At the 
same time, it is the neglect of the trustees alone that the 
rent in lieu of State taxes, which is unquestionably the 
property of the university, has not been regularly collected 
from the outset. 

The State of Ohio also received the benefit of another 
grant of lands for a college. By the contract between the 
United States and John Cleves Symmes one township was 
to be set apart for a seminary of learning." This reservation, 
confirmed by law in 1792,* was secured to Ohio upon its 

^ 72 Ohio Laws, 177. ' Supra, i8. 

"" Letter from Pres. V^. H. Scott, April 30, 1883. * i U. S. Stat., 266. 



195] Northwest Territory. 123 

admission as a State. Commissioners were immediately- 
appointed by the State to locate the land. They selected 
what is now the township of Oxford in Butler County. 

In 1809 the Legislature chartered Miami University and 
vested the seminary township in the trustees of the new 
institution/ permitting them to use in the support of the 
university only the income arising from the lands. The 
terms of the law were peculiar, but in effect the trustees 
were to lease the property in tracts of not more than one 
hundred and sixty acres for ninety-nine years to the highest 
bidder, but at a valuation of not less than two dollars per 
acre, the lessees to pay an annual rent of six per cent, on 
the amount of their bid. The leases were to be held subject 
to a revaluation every fifteen years, the land being appraised 
in each instance as if in an unimproved state. These pro- 
visions were similar to those for the lease of school lands, 
and embody the best form of the long-lease system, affording 
to the university the benefit of any increase in the value of 
the bare, unimproved land. 

In less than a year after this law was passed the Legisla- 
ture destroyed all its possible benefits by repealing so much 
of it "as required a revaluation every fifteen years."* By 
this change the lands were brought into the same condition 
with so many of the other educational lands of Ohio. At a 
single step the Legislature had gone from one of the best to 
the worst possible method of disposing of them — a step 
which proved the ruin of the university. A careful analysis, 
made a few years since,' of the membership of the two 
Legislatures which passed these laws, showed that the same 
men composed a majority in each. The only valid explana- 
tion of their contradictory action is that they were eager to 
lease the lands immediately in order to get the college 
started, and that during ten months under the first law only 
a small part of the township had been leased.* 

The mistaken notion of the Legislature must be obvious 
to all. With the Ohio University in operation the demand 

^ 7 Ohio Laws, 184. ' Education in Ohio, 201. 

^ 8 Ohio Laws, 95. ■* Ibid. 



124 Land Grants for Education in the [196 

for higher education in the infant State was not so great as 
to require the immediate establishment of a second college. 
Whatever may have been true concerning the common 
schools, an institution of learning of the higher sort, which 
might live for centuries, could well afford to delay its open 
ing for a few years if by so doing its permanent endowment 
would be increased. Even as it was, the college did not 
throw open its doors until 1824. In a short time all its 
lands might have been disposed of under the first law, and 
at the end of each fifteen years its income would have been 
increased by a large amount. Under the law of 1810 the 
entire township was almost immediately leased, and with a 
paltry income of five thousand six hundred dollars per year 
from its endowment of twenty-three thousand acres of land,^ 
the university dragged out a miserable existence until 1873, 
when for lack of means its doors were closed. 

(^) INDIANA. 

The land reserved in 1804 for a seminary of learning in 
the Vincennes land district of Indiana Territory, was located 
in 1806 by the Secretary of the United States Treasury, who 
set apart for that purpose one of the townships in Gibson 
County. In the same year the territorial Legislature incor- 
porated Vincennes University, and in the following year by 
a supplementary act provided " that the trustees . . . should 
be legally authorized to sell . . . any quantity not exceeding 
four thousand acres" of the seminary township " for the pur- 
pose of putting into immediate use the said university, and 
to have on rent the remaining part of said township to the 
best advantage for the use of said . . . university." ' This 
act assumed that the territorial Legislature possessed full 
powers over the lands, though Congress had merely ordered 
that they be " reserved from sale " by the United States for 
the use of a seminary of learning.' Immediately after the 
act of incorporation was passed the institution was organized. 

The trustees soon sold four thousand one hundred and 

^ Education in Ohio, 2oi. This income represents ninety-three thousand' 
dollars as the valuation of the lands, including many town and village lots. 
*Acts of Nov. 29, 1806, and Sept. 17, 1807. '2 U. S. Stat., 279. 



197] Northwest Territory. 125 

thirty-six acres * and rented portions of the remainder. With 
the proceeds of the sales a building was erected for the 
university. Congress, in 18 16, by special act confirmed the 
titles of those who had purchased from the trustees.^ The 
fact that such a measure was deemed necessary to protect 
the purchasers proves that, whatever other powers over the 
lands had been vested in the territorial Legislature, the right 
to sell had not been given them, and hence that the trustees 
had no such right. Even had this power been clearly in the 
hands of the trustees, it did not by the conditions under 
which Congress made the reservation carry with it any right 
to use the principal for the buildings or expenses of the in- 
stitution. Only the income was thus legally available under 
any circumstances. This use of the fund was, however, 
never questioned so far as to cause any restitution to be 
made.^ 

When Indiana became a State in 1 8 16 an additional town- 
ship of land was given to the State for the use of an institu- 
tion for higher education. The Legislature in 1 820 established 
a State seminary at Bloomington, and appropriated for its 
maintenance the income arising from this second township, 
which had been located in Monroe County.* The income 
was to be obtained by leasing the lands. At the same session 
of the Legislature a resolution was adopted touching the 
Gibson County township, which, without referring to Vin- 
cennes University, assumed the grant to that institution by 
the territorial Legislature to be null and void. The resolu- 
tion appointed a superintendent to lease the lands in that 
township " which are now under the control of the State of 
Indiana," and to collect all arrears of rent "due said State." ^ 
The superintendent was made accountable to the Legislature 
and was paid by the State. Two years later commissioners, 
were appointed to sell the "remainder" of these lands" at 
public auction for not less than five dollars per acre, and to 

1 Document F. "6 U. S. Stat., 171. 

^ See infra, 143 and 149, for similar attempts to misapply the seminary fund 
in Michigan and Wisconsin. ■• Indiana Laws, 1820, 82. ^ Ibid., 160. 

® This meant all but the four thousand acres sold in 1807 by Vincenncs 
University. 



126 Land Grants for Education in the [198 

deposit the proceeds in the State treasury for the benefit of 
the State seminary/ This is the earhest instance in the 
Northwest Territory where the system of leasing educational 
lands was formally abandoned in favor of the method since 
adopted by the five States. The supposed advantages of 
the latter system as applicable to all educational lands had 
been set before the Legislature by an elaborate report of a 
special committee, submitted a few days before the passage 
of this law.^ The Legislature, in devoting the income to 
the State seminary, did not venture, as they had two years 
before, to ignore the previous charter of Vincennes University. 
The act plainly declared that the endowment was bestowed 
upon the State seminary because the corporation of Vin- 
cennes University " had expired through the negligence of 
its members." The ground for this assertion was that the 
trustees had neglected to take the necessary steps for keep- 
ing good their number, and the existing trustees were fewer 
than were required by their charter in order to hold legal 
meetings or transact business. Vincennes University was 
soon closed for lack of funds to support it. 

Thus the State seminary came into possession of both 
townships as an endowment fund, with the exception of the 
four thousand acres already sold. During the next fifteen 
or twenty years, with no thought of further trouble from 
Vincennes University, the Legislature passed various meas- 
ures to secure a steady income for the seminary. In 1825 
the Monroe County lands were ordered to be leased for two 
years at public auction at an annual rent of not less than 
sixty-two and one half cents per acre.^ All the rents and 
profits of the lands and the interest upon the fund then in 
the State treasury from the sales of Gibson County lands 
were appropriated to the seminary. By a law adopted two 
years later all unsold lands in the two townships were divided 
into three classes, with minimum prices of three dollars and 

' Indiana Laws, 1822, iii. ^Senate Jour. Indiana, 1821-22, Appendix. 

^ Indiana Laws, 1825, 97. The Governor had called attention to the faults of 
existing leases made by the seminary trustees, and had suggested that the Legis- 
lature ' ' inquire whether they [the seminary lands] are not daily diminishing in 
^•alue." — Senate Jour., 1825, 29. 



199] Northwest Territory. \2j 

a half, two and a quarter, and one and a quarter respectively. 
With the exception of three sections near Bloomington 
they were to be offered at public auction within a year. 
The proceeds were to be paid into the State treasury, and 
all interest accruing was to be turned over to the trustees 
" to an amount not exceeding the pay-roll of the teachers." ' 
Hitherto the State had paid the interest on this fund, but in 
1828 a State loan-ofifiice was established for the purpose of lend- 
ing the moneys to citizens of Indiana on real-estate mortgages 
for not more than five years, at six per cent, interest.'' 

In 1828, by a modification of its charter, the seminary 
became the College of Indiana, and the three sections near 
Bloomington reserved from sale in 1827 were placed under 
the immediate control of the trustees.^ By other laws the 
public sales were continued on the same terms as before, 
while all lands not sold at auction were thrown open to pri- 
vate entry at the minimum prices already established.* In 
1830 these prices were reduced to two dollars and a half, one 
and a half, and seventy-five cents in the three grades." In 
the same year the Legislature authorized the trustees to sell 
one of the three reserved sections at not less than five dollars 
per acre, and to use the proceeds for purchasing apparatus for 
the college.* Similar disposition was afterwards made of the 
other two sections. It is hardly necessary to call attention 
to the illegality of such uses of the principal of the fund. 
In 1843 the style of the institution was changed to Indiana 
University,' under which name it has since been known. 
By that time the lands were nearly all disposed of and the 
university was deriving an income of perhaps five thousand 
dollars from the proceeds of forty-two thousand acres.' It is 
needless to say that the fund would have been twice or thrice 
as large had a proper system of leasing been maintained and 

' Indiana Laws, 1827, 95. * Indiana Laws, 1830, 167. 

' Indiana Laws, 1828, 127. * Ibid., 166. 

^ Indiana Laws, 1828, I15. 

* Act of January 16, 1S28. Also Indiana Laws, 1829, 140. 
' Revised Stat., 1S43, 299. 

^ The fund itself in 1846 amounted to $59,770, exclusive of balances still due 
from purchasers. — Auditor's Report, 1845. 



128 Land Grants for Education in the [200 

no sales made until government lands had become scarce in 
the vicinity. 

Troubles now arose from an unexpected cause. After 
Vincennes University was closed in 1824 no attempt at a 
reorganization was made for some years. In 1838 the Legis- 
lature made provision for supplying the vacancies in the 
board of trustees/ thus calling the old corporation again 
into activity. A clause was inserted in the act which was 
intended to prevent the renewal of any claim to the semi- 
nary township taken from the institution in 1822. As soon, 
however, as the other business of the new board permitted, 
steps were taken for the recovery of the lands. In 1844, 
suits were begun against the occupants and purchasers of 
those which had been sold since 1822. Before a decision 
had been rendered in any of the cases the State assumed all 
responsibility for the sales and authorized the trustees to 
bring suit against the State to determine where the title to 
the lands lay.^ The case passed through various courts, and 
was finally argued in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, where in 1852 a decision was rendered in favor of the 
university.^ 

It now seemed inevitable that the State University must 
lose nearly one half of its small endowment, but a series of 
events followed which proved that the litigation was but a 
blessing in disguise for both institutions. The State having 
already assumed the responsibility in the matter, the Legis- 
lature satisfied the claims of Vincennes University by direct 
payment of the proper sum from the State treasury, leaving 
the endowment of the State University intact.* In addition 
to this, Congress, to which an appeal for relief had been 

» Act of February 17, 1S38. " Act of January 17, 1846. 

^ Vincennes University vs. State of Indiana, 14 Howard, 268. The court 
declared that Vincennes University had come into legal possession of the land 
in 1807 ; that the Legislature could not divest its title to the land and confer it 
upon any other body politic, and that when the board was reorganized under 
the act of 1838 all its former rights and powers were restored. Incidentally it 
was held that by the terms of the act of Congress in 1816 {Supra, 35) the 
United States Government had vested only the second township in the State, 
thus recognizing the right of Vincennes University to the first. 

* Indiana Laws, 1855, 50. 



20 1 ] Northwest Territory. 129 

made while the suit was pending, granted to the State for 
the benefit of Indiana University an amount of land equal 
to that to which Vincennes had proved her title.' Still 
further, Congress, in 1852, granted to the State four thousand 
one hundred and thirty-six acres for the same purpose in 
lieu of those sold by the trustees of Vincennes University 
previous to 18 16.' 

Thus the State University lost nothing by the litigation, 
but obtained, in addition to what it possessed before, more 
than a township of new lands. On the other hand, Vin- 
cennes University received from the State $66,585 in pay- 
ment of its claims.' The annual income from this sum, 
which is more than the bare proceeds of the land grant, 
amounts to about four thousand dollars." In addition to 
this, she received in 1873 a direct gift from Congress of all 
the vacant and unclaimed lands in Knox County, Indiana." 
These lands, amounting to a few thousand acres, are under 
the immediate control of the trustees. Their proceeds will 
add several thousand dollars to the endowment fund of the 
college." 

1 10 U. S. Stat., 267. 

' 10 U. S. Stat., 14. This is one of the choicest passages in the whole his- 
toiy of educational land-grants. After the question of the title to the township 
was already in the lower courts, the Legislature of Indiana petitioned Congress 
for this grant, affirming that " the president and trustees of Vincennes Univer- 
sity 'ivithoiit any color of title sold four thousand acres " of the original 
township which was "vested in the Slate of Indiana." (Indiana Laws, 1849, 
151. Senate Miscellanies, ist Session, 31st Cong., No. 40.) This disingenuous 
statement, assuming the very points at issue in the courts, and carefully dis- 
guising the truth, completely deceived Congress. The Senate Committee on 
Public Lands reported favorably, and their report shows how far the deception 
extended. " It does not appear,' runs the report, " that the territorial authori- 
ties of Indiana in any manner consented to the sale of the land by the trustees 
of the Vincennes University." (Document G.) What the true state of the case 
was we have already seen, but by forestalling the decision of the court, and by 
concealing important facts, the State obtained for the university a clear ' ' bonus " 
of four thousand acres. 

' This sum included interest on the funds from the date of the sales of the 
lands. The university received actually but $41,585, its attorney having re- 
tained $25,000 for his services in the case, of which sum a suit failed to dis- 
possess him. — Schools of Indiana, 135. 

*Ibid., 136. °I7U, S. Stat., 614. ' Schools of Indiana, 135. 



1 30 Land Grants for Education in the [202 

The additional lands received in 1852 and 1854 for the 
State University, were selected in small tracts in various 
parts of the State. In 1859 the trustees of the university 
were ordered to proceed to the appraisal of the lands ; after 
the appraisal was made, the auditor of each county where 
the lands were situated was to sell them whenever the 
trustees ordered. They were first to be offered at auction 
at not less than the appraised value, and those not thus sold 
were subject to private entry.* The proceeds were deposited 
in the State treasury, and loaned out at interest. It is diffi- 
cult, and perhaps needless, to give any exact statements of 
the proceedings with reference to these lands. Judging 
from the small fund derived from them, the appraisers rated 
them at low valuations. In spite of this, they have not all 
been sold, and in 1882 the State Auditor urged that they 
were held at too high prices.' The whole system of man- 
aging the State lands, and keeping the records in Indiana, 
has, until recently, been loose and faulty. As a result, it is 
impossible to tell how many acres are still owned by the 
university. According to the records, there remain un- 
patented 8,526 acres,^ but of these many have been sold, 
for which the university has received the final payments. 
The State has neglected to issue, or the purchasers have 
failed to demand, the proper patents.* Until the purchasers 
shall respond to the request of the ofificials, and present 
their certificates of payment for the lands, there are no 
means of ascertaining the exact state of affairs. How such 
a loose system of managing trust lands can have existed 
and been tolerated seems inexplicable. 

The proceeds of all the grants have been invested since 
1828 in small loans to individuals, the loans being secured 
by real-estate mortgages. The difficulties and dangers of 
this method of investing trust funds where the loans are not 

^ Indiana Laws, 1839, 234. 

"" Many of these lands cannot be sold. . . . The appraisement . . . was 
made when the price of real estate was much higher than at present (?) ; and in 
consequence of the depreciation in value thereof, the county officers are unable 
to dispose of them." — Auditor's Report, 1882, 1 10. 

^ Ibid,, \\\-\\t^. * Ibid., 110. 



203] Northwest Territory. 131 

made by local officers, have already been mentioned. In- 
diana did not escape these dangers and consequent losses. 
In 1845 many of the borrowers had ceased paying the in- 
terest on their loans, and in some cases the security was 
found insufficient for the amount loaned. It was discovered 
that in the times of high prices preceding the panic of 1837, 
loans had been made up to the full estimated value of the 
land offered as security. The value subsequently falling off, 
the full amount of many such loans could not be recovered 
by the State.' The system was, however, continued, and the 
entire productive fund of the university is invested in loans 
to individuals. Since 1855 the Auditor and Treasurer of 
the State have jointly received five per cent, of the income 
of the fund for managing it." The numerous small loans 
have required much of their time, but Indiana is rich enough 
to follow the example of her sister States, and to pay for 
this labor from the State treasury. The proceeds of the 
sixty thousand acres thus far sold amount to $139,036.74,^ 
being an average of about two dollars and thirty cents per 
acre for lands, many of which are inferior to none in the 
State. 

ic) ILLINOIS. 

The township of land reserved in 1804 for a seminary of 
learning in the Kaskaskia land district was set apart in 18 16 
for the Territory of Illinois. The territorial Legislature ap- 
pears to have taken no measures to establish a seminary, or 
utilize the grant. When Illinois became a State, in 1818, 
the second township was granted to her for the same pur- 
pose, with the privilege of locating it in detached tracts of 
small area. This insured the selection of better lands than 
where the township was located as a single tract. None of 
the lands were selected until 1824, and some of them as late 

' ' ' Many of these forfeited lands were mortgaged at their estimated value in 
1835-6 and 7, and are now far from being a sufficient security for the amount 
loaned. There is but little prospect that any considerable portion of them can 
be disposed of for the full amount due." — Auditor's Report, 1845. See Indiana 
Laws, 1846, Appendix. 

* Indiana Laws, 1855, 203. 'Auditor's Report, 1882, 121. 



J 32 Land Grants for Education in the [204 

as 1830. In January, 1829/ the Legislature authorized the 
sale of the selected lands at public auction. A minimum 
price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre was put 
upon them, and if not sold at the auction, they could be 
purchased at any time thereafter at the minimum price. 
Settlers were given the right of preemption at that price.' 

The first township the Legislature had in 1821 ordered the 
State Auditor to lease.' When he took steps to carry out 
this instruction, he found that the township was of such 
poor quality that it was impossible to lease it. Judging 
from the descriptions given of the land, it must have been 
selected after a glance at some map, not from an examina- 
tion of the country itself," In 1829, the Legislature, in the 
hope of obtaining a better township addressed a memorial 
to Congress representing that the township would always be 
^'' totally valueless for a seminary of learning," and asking 
the privilege of exchanging it for an equal quantity of land 
to be selected in small tracts.* Congress granted the 
prayer^ in 1831, and the State made new selections, which 
are among the best farming lands in Illinois.'' Such was the 
haste to dispose of the lands, that before Congress had con- 
sented to the exchange, a State law was passed providing 
for their sale on the same terms as those prescribed in the 
case of the other seminary lands.* All but one sixteenth of 
the entire seventy-two sections were soon sold, and but 
three tracts were sold for more than the minimum price.'' In- 
deed, had the Legislature determined that the lands should 
not sell for more than the minimum price, they could not 
have carried out their determination more successfully. 
Under the law all were offered at auction at one time, and 
those not disposed of then were purchasable at any subse- 

^ Pillsbury, cxxxii. , cxxxiii. To this admirable paper I am indebted for many 
details. ' Illinois Laws, 1829, 158. ' Illinois Laws, 1821, 60. 

* " A large part of this township of land is now found to be filled with lakes 
and swamps, while other parts of it are barren and sterile, so that it has been 
found impracticable to lease the same, or apply it in any manner to the objects 

<■ contemplated in the grant." — State Papers, 6 Public Lands, 14. 

* Ibid., 13. " 3 U. S. Stat., 475. '' Pillsbury, cxxxiii. 

* Illinois Laws, 1831, 171. 



205] Northwest Territory. 133 

quent time for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 
As there was no demand for so many lands, there was little 
competition at the auction. Had only a small amount been 
offered for sale at one time, nothing but a combination 
among purchasers could have prevented competition and a 
consequent increase in the prices obtained. 

The terrible wastefulness in selling these selected lands, 
under any circumstances, at the lowest price at which lands 
could be bought in the United States is apparent. In the 
light of accompanying legislation, and certain other facts, 
the transaction assumes even a worse complexion. The 
sales were not ordered because there was in existence any 
seminary of learning which needed for its support the in- 
come from the fund ; nor can proof be found that the 
Legislature which fixed the price and authorized the sales 
contemplated the immediate organization of any institution 
capable of taking the benefit of the grant. Certainly none 
was established until a full quarter of a century later. The 
truth seems to be that the Legislature desired the use of the 
fund for other purposes, and established such prices for the 
Jands as would result in speedy sales. 

To understand the designs of the Legislature it is neces- 
sary to note the financial condition of the State. Since 1821, 
Illinois had been suffering all the evils resulting from an un- 
limited issue of paper currency.' A weight of debt had been 
thrown upon the people. Taxes had, in consequence, be- 
come burdensome to them, and a Legislature that ventured 
to increase taxation was overwhelmed with reproach. As a 
result, all sorts of shifts were resorted to by the legislators to 
lessen taxes and avoid unpopularity. Among other schemes 
occurred the expedient of selling the seminary lands and bor- 
rowing the money to meet the current expenses of the gov- 
ernment.' We have just seen how the lands were oft^ered at 
prices intended to force speedy sales, in utter disregard of 
their actual value, and when no college was organized to 
utilize the fund. It remains to show how the State used the 
proceeds. The Legislature did not wish to make their game 

' Edwards, 175 ; Sumner, 122. " Ford, 79. 



134 Lmid Grants for Education in the [_2o6 

too evident, and the law which authorized the sales con- 
tained an innocent provision constituting four of the State 
ofificers a board of commissioners to take charge of the 
money and invest it in " stocks or funds." ' Then by a 
separate act the Governor was instructed to borrow the 
school fund and the proceeds of the seminary lands at six 
per cent, per annum, the interest to be added to the princi- 
pal until needed.^ This last clause is the key to the whole 
plot. Here was a method of borrowing money without 
paying any immediate interest. At the end of each year 
the proper sum was added to the fund oji the books and the 
whole reckoned as principal the next year. So long as the 
Legislature did not see fit to establish a college to take the 
benefit of the fund, so long would it be able to use the 
money and throw upon succeeding generations the burden 
of paying all the interest. 

In 1835 it was provided that the interest instead of being 
added to the principal should thereafter be loaned to the 
school fund for distribution over the State.' This arrange- 
ment lasted until 1857, when finally the State Normal Uni- 
versity was established and the income of the fund given to 
it.'' Thus it appears that the first lands were sold twenty- 
eight years before the fund was applied to its proper use. 
For twenty-two years of that time the interest was " loaned " 
to the school fund, and the loan, amounting in 1857 to 
seventy thousand dollars, has never been repaid ; that is, 
from 1835 to 1857 the seminary fund was illegally diverted 
to the use of the common schools. There may have been 
reasons why the schools should borrow money,^ but there 
can be no valid ground for permitting a trust fund to be 
diverted from its true object with no thought of reparation. 

In 1 86 1, the four and one half sections still unsold were 
given to the Illinois Agricultural College. They were 
soon disposed of for fifty-eight thousand dollars, or about 
twenty dollars per acre. The proceeds were mismanaged by 
the college, and in 1872 the State took steps through the 

» Illinois Laws, iS2g, 158. ' Ibid., iiS. ' Illinois Laws, 1S35, 23. 

■* Illinois Laws, 1S57, 300. ' See Pillsbury, cxxxiv. 



2oy'\ Northwest Territory. 135 

courts to recover the fund on the ground that the college had 
not used it according to the terms of the grant ! The suit 
resulted in favor of the State, and on the judgment a quantity 
of land has been secured which has since been sold for nine 
thousand dollars. This sum should be added to the seminary- 
fund, though it does not yet appear there on the books of 
the State.* The fund amounts to $59,838.72, and the annual 
income is $3,590.32.' 

This fund is fairly entitled to the distinction of having 
been the worst-abused educational trust fund in the North- 
west Territory. Other States have sold their lands at as low 
prices, and some have hurried the sales in order to afford an 
immediate income for the beneficiary of the trust ; Illinois 
alone has sacrificed the lands thirty years before the bene- 
ficiary of the trust was created. Other States have borrowed 
the funds after the lands were sold ; Illinois alone has sold 
the lands in order to borrow the proceeds. Other States 
have lost portions of the principal and interest ; Illinois alone 
has by law used the income for other purposes than those 
intended in the grant. Had the lands been leased until 1857, 
when the grant was first legitimately used, and then sold, 
they would have produced a fund of more than eight hundred 
thousand dollars.' 

In addition to the two townships one half of one per cent. 
of the proceeds of the sales of public lands within the State 
was given to the State for a college or university. The his- 
tory of this fund up to 1835 has already been related in con- 
nection with that of the school funds.'' In 1836 it was 
ordered that the interest instead of being added to the prin- 
cipal, as had been the custom, should thereafter, like the 
interest on the seminary fund, be loaned to the schools.* 
This continued until 1857, when the fund was given as an 
endowment to the State Normal Universit)''. 

' Tbid. 

' Illinois School Report, 1882, cxliii. From 1839 to 1873 one twenty- 
fourth of the income was given to the State Deaf and Dumb Institute. 

' The land sold in 1861 at twenty dollars an acre is claimed to have been no 
better than the remaining forty thousand acres which were sold in 1830-5 for one 
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 

* Supra, 83-85. * Illinois Laws, 1835, 23. 



136 Land Grants for Educatio?i in the [208 

It has been shown that the interest accumulating between. 
1835 and 1857 o'^ the fund derived from the seminary lands 
was never repaid by the State or the school fund. The 
interest on the '' one half per cent." fund the State has re- 
turned.' A portion of this back interest has been used in 
erecting buildings, while about thirty-four thousand dollars 
have been added to the principal. The fund now amounts to 
$156,613.32, affording an annual income of $9,396.80. Since 
1877 the income of both funds has been equally divided 
between the two normal schools of the State.^ 

{d) MICHIGAN. 

By the act of Congress in 1804, already frequently alluded 
to, one township in the Detroit land district was reserved for 
a seminary of learning in the territory now under the juris- 
diction of the State of Michigan. By a treaty concluded at 
Fort Meigs, in September, 18 17, between the United States 
and various Indian tribes, three sections of land were granted 
to " the corporation of the college at Detroit," and full 
powers given to the corporation to sell them.'' The " college 
at Detroit " was not then in existence, but was established in 
the following month,* under the authority and as a branch of 
the " Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania," a cor- 
poration chartered by the territorial authorities in August,^ 
1 8 17.* In 1 82 1, before any of the lands were located, the 
authorities chartered the University of Michigan.® The 
management and control of the seminary township given to 
the trustees was limited to the power of leasing the lands for 
seven years. The university was also made the legal succes- 
sor of the Catholepistemiad, and as such acquired the title 
to the three sections of land belonging to the college at 
Detroit. 

' See Illinois Laws, l86i, 147. "^ Pillsbury, cxxxv. ' 7 U. S. Stat., 166. 

* Its establishment was announced in the Detroit Gazette, October 24, 1817. 
— Ten Brook, 100. 

^ 2 Territorial Laws, Mich., 104. The charter of this institution, besprinkled 
with strange provisions in stranger language, is a literary and legal curiosity. 

* I Territorial Laws, Mich., 879. 



209] Northwest Territory. 137 

Steps were immediately taken to have the lands located. . 
The three sections were selected and patents were issued for 
them in 1824.' When the location of the seminary township 
came under consideration an unexpected difficulty arose. 
The law required the land to be selected from that to which 
the Indian title had been extinguished previous to 1804.^ 
No good complete township which met the requirement 
could be found. When this became known, the trustees 
petitioned Congress to take such action as would remove all 
obstacles in the way of a location of the lands.' In 1826 
Congress authorized them to select from any public lands in 
Michigan an amount equal to twice the first reservation, in 
tracts of not less than a section each.* Thus, by the delay in 
locating the township, Michigan secured better lands, and, 
like the other States, twice the original amount. 

The trustees of the university at once appointed a com- 
mittee " to examine the country and to report fully their 
opinion in regard to the location of these lands." ^ As a re- 
sult of their investigations two sections were located in 1827 
and reserved by the proper authorities at Washington.®' 
These two sections lay along the bank of the Maumee 
River, and are now in the heart of the city of Toledo, in the 
State of Ohio, this region being then a part of the Territory 
of Michigan. The lands were exceedingly valuable even at 
that early day, and many attempts to purchase them were 
soon made by speculators. In 1831 the trustees, under 
authority of Congress,^ exchanged the most valuable half of 
them for a somewhat larger quantity of less desirable lands . 
in the same vicinity. These latter were in 1836, by permis- 
sion of Congress,* sold back for five thousand dollars to the 
party from whom they had been originally received.' At 
the time of this last transaction the original selection, exclu- 
sive of improvements, was worth half a million dollars." The 
university, by parting with it six years too soon, received 
the paltry sum of five thousand dollars. The motives which 

1 Ten Brook, io6. ' Adams, 2. 

'2 U. S. Stat., 277, Sees. 2 and 5. * Ten Brook, 107. 

^ Jour. Territorial Council, 1824, 89. ^ 6 U. S. Stat., 402. 

* 4 U. S. Stat., 180. ^Ibid., 628. » Gregory, 60. ''Ibid., 61. . 



138 Land Grants for Education in the [210 

led the trustees to dispose of these lands, worth more even 
then than all the rest of the grant, are difificult to understand, 
and especially so in view of the fact that special action of 
Congress authorizing the .transfer and sale had to be ob- 
tained. The transaction has been and always will be regretted 
by all interested in the prosperity of the university. For 
the sake of presenting the whole history of the Toledo lands 
at once, we may look forward a few years. After the State 
of Ohio assumed jurisdiction over that region it seemed 
unadvisable for the university to retain the lands subject 
to taxation by Ohio. Accordingly the remainder of them 
were sold between 1849 ^^<^ 1S55 ^^ an average price of 
nineteen dollars per acre. For all the university lands 
about Toledo, worth in 1859 two or three millions, but sev- 
enteen thousand dollars were realized by the institution.^ 
This sale of the Toledo lands and that of the three sections 
reserved by the Fort Meigs treaty for about the same sum 
were the only ones made before Michigan became a State. 
The trustees, however, located twenty-three sections of the 
lands previous to 1836.^ 

After the establishment of the State government the uni- 
versity was reorganized. The property and funds of the old 
board of trustees were turned over to the new regents of the 
institution. This property consisted of a lot and academy 
building in Detroit, purchased with the proceeds of the Fort 
Meigs lands and private subscriptions. The fund, as already 
stated, amounted to five thousand dollars. The university 
lands were vested in the Legislature by act of Congress in 
1837.^ The constitution declared that the proceeds should 
be and remain a permanent fund for the support of the uni- 
versity, and enjoined it upon the Legislature to provide for 
the improvement and permanent security of this fund.* As 
in the case of the school lands, so here, the first State Legis- 
lature directed the Superintendent of Public Instruction to 
make an inventory of the lands, to suggest methods of dis- 

' For a complete history of these transactions, see Gregory, 59-64, or Ten 
Brook, 107-109. 

'^ Ten Brook, 109. ' Supra, 39. ^ Constitution, Art. X., Sec. 5. 



21 1] Northwest Territory. 139 

posing of them, and to report a system for the organization 
of a university/ The general policy advocated by the 
Superintendent with reference to all educational lands in 
the State " has already been discussed. He estimated the 
university lands as worth certainly fifteen and probably 
twenty dollars per acre.' Having decided in favor of selling 
the lands, he urged that a limited quantity be offered at 
auction at a minimum price of at least fifteen dollars per 
acre.* The Legislature, after considering this report, placed 
the management and care of the fund in the hands of the 
Superintendent, and authorized him to sell at auction, at a 
minimum price of twenty dollars per acre, so much of the 
land as should amount to half a million dollars.' The pro- 
ceeds of the sales were to be loaned on the same terms as 
were provided for the school funds. ^ During the year 1837, 
over one seventh of the entire grant was sold, at an average 
price of twenty-two dollars and eighty-five cents per acre, 
and the prospects seemed excellent for the speedy realiza- 
tion of the million dollars estimated as the value of the 
grant.' The effects of the crisis of 1837 soon blighted these 
hopes. 

The history of the university fund during the next few 
years shows the same troubles and disasters which were en- 
countered by the school fund. The sales fell off, many lands 
already sold under contract were forfeited by the purchasers, 
and the interest on many others was in arrears. The Legis- 
lature was urged to reduce the price of unsold lands, and to 

' Mich. Laws, 1835-6, 49. ^ Supra, 89 et seq. 

* " It is not apprehended that the amount can, in any event, fall short of the 
lower estimate, while it is believed, judging from the decisions of the past and 
the indications of the future, that it will exceed the higher computation." — Sen- 
ate Jour., 1837, Appendix, 71. 

* " Let the lands in the more settled parts of the State be thrown into market 
and sold to the highest bidder. What remains unsold might still be kept in mar- 
ket to be sold as occasion should offer." — Ibid., 70. 

* Mich. Laws, 1837, 209. 

* Supra, 90. The purchaser was required to pay one fourth of the price in 
cash, and the remainder in instalments. This was subsequently changed to one 
tenth cash. — Mich. Laws, 1837, 316. 

' Report of Supt. of Public Instruction, 1837, 71. 



140 Land Grants for Education in the [212 

adopt measures for the " relief " of those who had already- 
purchased. The history of the legislation on the subject 
from 1840 is almost identical with that pertaining to the 
school lands. The prices of both were reduced simultane- 
ously ; similar relief was given to purchasers, and the same 
general mischief was wrought by ill-advised law-making. 
Whatever was praiseworthy in the one case is equally so in 
the other, while in both the same criticisms must be offered. 
Before any general reduction of "^ prices was made the 
university became involved in a contest with squatters who 
had settled upon lands in the western part of the State, 
which had been selected for the university in 1836,^ and 
confirmed to the State for that purpose in 1837. The first 
threatenings of the struggle were manifested after the lands 
were located, but before the selections were confirmed. A 
petition was forwarded to the Governor and the Legislature, 
remonstrating against the selection of these lands on the 
ground that many of them had been occupied previously by 
settlers in the hope that Congress would pass a law giving 
all such settlers on public lands preemption rights.^ By the 
petitioners' own showing there was not then in existence a 
letter of law giving them a claim to the land. At the next 
session of the Legislature, the lands having in the meantime 
been confirmed to the State, the settlers insisted that their 
claims should be recognized, because they had settled on the 
lands before they had been selected for the university ; that 
the selections were not valuable, and that the interests of the 
university would not suffer by granting the settlers their 
rights. A legislative committee, after investigating the sub- 
ject was unable to say that the settlers had a shadow of 
legal claim, but, accepting the statement of interested parties,, 
decided that the lands were not so valuable as many others 
in the State ^ which might be selected in their place. On the 
recommendation of this committee the Legislature passed an 

act to release the title of the university to sixteen sections 

i 

' Ten Brook (p. 117) and Adams (p. 4) give this date erroneously as 1830. See ? 
preamble of Act of March 30, 1838, Mich. Laws, 1838, 115. 

* Senate Jour. , 1837, Document No. 15. 

* Mich. Senate Docs., 1838, No. 37, and House Docs., 1838, No. 35. 



213] Northwest Territory. 141 

of the land, provided Congress at its then present session 
would give the State authority to select other lands in their 
stead/ 

It does not seem probable that the university would have 
lost any thing had this exchange of lands taken place. 
Congress, however, did not give its assent to the proposition, 
and the claimants again returned to the attack. In 1839 "^ 
bill was introduced to authorize the sale, at one dollar and 
twenty-five cents per acre, of any university lands which could 
be shown to have been occupied previous to their location 
by the State. The regents of the university remonstrated 
against the passage of the bill, showing that the lands were 
worth at least twenty dollars per acre ; that the claims of the 
occupants were not only without legal foundation, but 
actually fraudulent, and that the bill would open the door 
to a host of equally fraudulent claims in the future.* The 
remonstrance had no effect upon the Legislature, and the bill 
was passed. Governor Mason refused his assent to it, 
pointing out that such a disposition of the lands was a viola- 
tion of the terms of the trust, and that the bill had been 
pushed through " by a wholesale species of propagandism in 
search of adventurers to claim the public lands." ^ This 
defeat of the settlers did not end the struggle. 

One more attack was made upon the Legislature, and in 
1840 an act was passed authorizing the appointment of three 
commissioners to examine each claim, and if it appeared that 
the claimant had actually settled upon the land before it was 
selected for the university, to appraise the value of the 
property exclusive of improvements. The claimant was then 

' Mich. Laws, 1838, 115. * Senate Docs., 1839, No. 32. 

•House Docs., 1839, 828, "The Congress of the United States 'have 
granted and conveyed these lands to the State, to be appropriated solely to the 
use and support of the University of Michigan.' The State has accepted these 
lands, and the constitution enjoins ' that the Legislature shall take measures for 
their protection and improvevient, and also provide means for the permanent 
security of the funds of the institution.' These are the solemn conditions by 
which the State holds this sacred trust ; and yet, by one single enactment, you 
place all the lands thus held in trust in market at $1.25 per acre, no matter wliat 
their value, when located, or how claimed. , . . Can this be a faithful ad- 
ministration of the trust committed to us ? " 



142 Land Grants for Education in the [214 

permitted to purchase the land at this appraised value.' This 
law was purely a compromise in a matter where the legal 
right was entirely on the side of the State. By its operations 
over four thousand acres were sold at an average price of six 
dollars and twenty-one cents, at a time when other university 
lands sold for over twenty-four dollars an acre. The general 
impression has always existed that the greater part of the 
claims were utterly fraudulent, but after this interval of time 
it is impossible to determine the truth in the matter. 

As already stated, the same policy of reduction of price 
observed in the case of the school lands, was adopted for the 
university grant. In 1841 the minimum price of unsold 
lands was reduced to fifteen dollars,'^ and in the next year to 
twelve dollars per acre.' This last law also provided that 
the associate judges should examine any lands already sold at 
twenty dollars per acre or over — that is, all lands sold previous 
to 1 841 — and appraise their value in their actual condition at 
the time of sale. The difference between this valuation and 
the contract price was, as in the case of the school lands, to 
be credited to the purchaser. The reduction might be any 
amount not exceeding forty per cent, of the contract price. 
Under this law thirty-four thousand dollars were credited 
back to the purchasers in one year, the reduction being nearly 
forty per cent, in every case.* Up to the ist of January, 
1843, by various relief measures and reductions of price, the 
amount contracted to be paid had shrunk from two hundred 
and twenty thousand to one hundred and thirty-seven thou- 
sand dollars.^ If such measures were unwise and unneces- 
sary when applied to the school lands, they were doubly so 
in this case. There was not the same necessity for a uni- 
versity, as for common schools, in the young State. If the 
lands would have sold at the higher prices by holding them 
a few years, and every thing indicates that they would, the 
true policy was to keep the price up. A delay of a decade 
in the organization of a university cannot be of such moment 

" Mich. Laws, 1840, loi. ^Mich. Laws, 1842, 45. 

"Mich. Laws, 1841, 157. ^ Joint Docs., 1843, 210. 

* " The 13,000 acres of university lands, once sold for nearly $17 an acre, have 
dwindled down to 10,500, at an average price of less than $12.50." — Ibid., 219. 



215] Northwest Territory. 143 

as to offset a difference of half a million dollars in its per- 
manent endowment. 

In 1838 the regents applied to the Legislature for a loan of 
one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting 
buildings for the university. The application was successful, 
and the money was loaned to the university at six per cent, 
interest. Both principal and interest were to be repaid from 
the income of the university fund.* At that time it was ex- 
pected that the lands would sell rapidly, and that the income 
of the university would soon reach sixty or seventy thousand 
dollars, from which the loan could easily be repaid. From 
causes already noted the sales progressed, and the income 
increased, far more slowly than had been anticipated. The pay- 
ment of the interest on the loan absorbed the greater part of 
the annual income of the institution. In 1844 the Legislature 
relieved the embarrassments of the infant university by 
adopting a measure which accelerated the sales of land with- 
out any reduction in the price. This was accomplished by 
authorizing the receipt of certain outstanding State warrants 
in payment for lands. As these warrants could be bought in 
the market for about fifty cents on the dollar, the actual 
cost of the land to the purchaser would be but half the legal 
price. As the State accepted these warrants at par in such 
cases, and credited the full amount to the university fund, 
the latter suffered no loss. This law, however, indirectly 
authorized the eventual payment of the loan from the prin- 
cipal of the university fund.'' This use of the fund was un- 
constitutional, as well as contrary to the terms of the grant. 
However, no objection was made to the provision, and in 
1850 the State repaid itself the one hundred thousand dollars 
by deducting that amount from the fund of the university in 
its possession.^ 

Had the proceedings stopped here there would be no 
doubt that the university was relieved from all further obli- 
gation in the matter, as there could be none that the last 

' The State did not have the money in its treasury, and twenty-year bonds were 
issued to the amount required. — Mich, Laws, 1838, 248. 
^ Mich. Laws, 1844, 18, 117. 
^ Joint Docs., 1850, No. 2, pp. 11, 36; Ibid., 1851, No. 2, pp. 7, 32. 



144 Land Grants for Education in the [216 

action of the State was unconstitutional. In 1853, however, 
for reasons not necessary to note here, the Legislature or- 
dered the proper State officers to pay to the university, at 
stated intervals, " the entire amount of interest that may 
hereafter accrue upon the whole amount of university lands 
sold or that may be hereafter sold," ' That is, the State 
was to pay interest not only upon the amount of the fund 
then upon the books, and which the State in accordance 
with its established policy had borrowed, but also on the 
hundred thousand dollars deducted in 1850 in payment of 
the loan. So far as the university was concerned, this latter 
amount was thus made a part of the fund so long as the act 
remained in force. This arrangement continued until 1877," 
when, by authority of the Legislature,^ one hundred thou- 
sand dollars were transferred back to the fund on the books 
of the State. Thus the fund to-day represents the actual 
proceeds of all the sales. Evidently the loan has not been 
paid out of the principal of the fund, and the records show 
no such payment from the income. It is not probable, how- 
ever, that the State, which has always been generous with its 
university, will ever demand repayment of the loan. 

When the land-office was established in 1842, the manage- 
ment of the university lands passed into the hands of the 
Commissioner. Since then the sales have continued unin- 
terruptedly. Many attempts have been made to reduce the 
price, but fortunately all have failed. The lands are all sold 
except two hundred and eighty-seven acres, and the fund 
amounts to $543,317.66.'' The average price received per 
acre for the entire quantity sold is eleven dollars and eighty- 
seven cents,^ or more than twice that received for any other 
educational grant in the Northwest Territory. 

' Mich. Laws, 1853, 85. ' See Mich. Laws, 1855, 139 ; 1857,154; 1859,397. 

^ Mich. Laws, 1877, 290. This was a general law authorizing transfers be- 
tween different accounts on the books of the State preparatory to the adoption 
of a new system of keeping the accounts. No mention is made of this particu- 
lar transfer, and the law is no evidence of an intention to give the one hundred 
thousand dollars to the university. 

■» Report, Supt. of Pub. Instruction, 1882, 18. 

^ Excluding the Toledo lands sold during the territorial days, the average is 
clightly over twelve dollars. 



21 f\ NortJiwest Territory. 145 

{e) WISCONSIN. 

Congress made no reservation for a seminary in Wisconsin 
until 1838, when in response to a petition of the territory 
the usual seventy-two sections were set aside.* On the 
same day that the petition was framed by the territorial 
Legislature a law was passed establishing the " University of 
the Territory of Wisconsin." "^ This law made no reference 
to any prospective land grant, nor were the lands applied to 
the benefit of the institution before Wisconsin became a 
State. Two thirds of the lands were located by special 
commissioners appointed by the Legislature in 1840,^ and 
the remainder by similar officers appointed in 1846.* During 
the territorial days the trustees of the university organized 
as a board, but took no measures to establish and open the 
institution. 

The State constitution adopted in 1848 provided for the 
establishment of a State university " at or near the seat of 
government," and declared that the lands granted for a uni- 
versity should constitute a perpetual fund, the income of 
which should be given to the support of this institution.^ 
The first State Legislature repealed or amended the law 
establishing the territorial university, and formally chartered 
the "University of Wisconsin at Madison."* In the same 
year an appraisal of the lands, together with all improve- 
ments made by occupants or claimants, was ordered.^ 
About seven eighths of the grant was thus appraised. The 
values ranged from one dollar and thirteen cents to seven 
dollars and six cents per acre, the average being two dollars 
and eighty-seven cents.* The report of the appraisers was 
presented to the Legislature, and in 1849 ^ ^"^^ was passed 
providing for the sale of the lands at auction. The valua- 
tion set by the appraisers was established as the minimum 
price receivable, and previous settlers were given preemption 

' Supra, 40. 

' Butterfield, 9. Institutions of the same name had been chartered in 1836 
and 1837, but no attempt at organization was made in either case. 

^Wis. Stat., 1S39, 158. 'Constitution, Art. X., Sec. 6. 

* Wis. Laws, 1S46, 99. ° Wis. Laws, 1848, 37. ^ Ibid., 123. 

•Butterfield, 50. Assembly Jour. , 1850, 499, 500. 



146 Land Grants for Education in the [218 

rights at this price/ The proceeds, as in the case of the school 
lands, were loaned to individuals on real-estate mortgages. 

It is needless to enter again into the question of the 
best policy to be observed by a State in managing lands held 
in trust for higher education. If it is decided that the lands 
should be sold as soon as possible, no measure can be fairer 
than one which offers them at their appraised value, provided 
a fair appraisal can be obtained. There is reason to believe 
that the appraisal in Wisconsin was not entirely honest,^ 
though in some cases the prices fixed were high enough.' 
Many lands were sold during the first year, but the next 
Legislature held the sound opinion that it was better to 
accumulate a large fund, even though the sales were less 
rapid, than to sacrifice the lands for the sake of an immediate 
fund. The minimum price was accordingly raised to ten dol- 
lars per acre.^ The sale of more than a thousand acres in the 
next twelve months at an average of over ten dollars showed 
the wisdom of the step. 

But the policy of the State had become firmly settled 
in favor of using trust lands to attract immigrants. These 
slow sales were contrary to that policy, and strong pressure 
was brought to bear on the Legislature to reduce the price 
again. The prominent argument used was, of course, that 
the interests of the university would be advanced by faster 
sales at lower prices and the more speedy accumulation 
of the fund.* The committee of the State Senate did not, 
however, favor a reduction, preferring to hold the lands until 
they should be worth the established price, as they must be 
sooner or later.^ The Legislature differed with the com- 

^Wis. Laws, 1849, 149. 

* This is shown by the fact that the average appraised value of the sixteenth sec- 
tion school lands was $3. 66, while that of the university lands, which were selected 
lands and hence more valuable, was but $2.87 per acre. 

^See letter of Stoddard Judd in Assembly Jour., 1850, 999. 
*Wis. Laws, 1850, 144. 

* The letter of Stoddard Judd, already cited, says : "I have no hesitation 
in giving it as my opinion that every interest of the State University . . . 
would be both now as well as hereafter promoted by an entire and total repeal of 
the law," fixing the minimum price at ten dollars per acre. 

•Senate Jour., 1851, 468. 



219] Northwest Territory, 147 

mittee, and reduced the price to seven dollars per acre, 
except where the land had been appraised at a higher value 
in 1848. Occupants were given preemption rights to pur- 
chase at the appraised value in all cases. All preemptors 
who had purchased lands at more than the appraised value 
were credited back all excess over that value.' " The effect 
of this legislation was to secure the university lands to 
preemptors at prices, on the average, far below the minimum 
price as fixed by the law of 1850, or even that of 185 1. Im- 
migration was thus encouraged, but at the expense of 
the vital interests of the university."* 

The mania for selling the lands had by this time taken such 
hold upon the State that any law which did not succeed in 
attracting purchasers at once was deemed a failure. The 
next Legislature, urged by various petitions and the advice 
of a committee,^ adopted a new measure for hastening sales. 
The Governor was authorized to appoint commissioners to 
re-appraise the unsold lands. None were to be appraised at 
less than three dollars per acre, and the value as estimated by 
the commissioners was to be the minimum price.* Under 
these provisions the lands were appraised, the greater part of 
them being valued by the commissioners, in pursuance 
of the hint given in the law, at three dollars per acre. 
At these prices they were in great demand ^ and were soon 
sold. The proceeds of the forty-six thousand acres amounted 
to about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

While passing laws for selling the lands at low prices the 
Legislature, realizing the effect which such sales would have 
on the ultimate fund, petitioned Congress for seventy- 
two sections more for the university in lieu of the saline 
lands granted to the State in 1848 but never located.^ As 
already stated,^ Congress complied with this petition in 

'Wis. Laws, 1851, 419, ' Butterfield, 56. 

' The committee concluded their report with the following opinion : ' ' To en- 
sure the sale of any considerable portion of the university lands a further reduction 
in the price is necessary. As the law now stands none can be sold except on pre- 
emption for less than seven dollars per acre, which at present operates nearly as a 
prohibition of sales." — Appendix to Journals, 1852, 202. 

*\Vis. Laws, 1852, 769, HVis. Laws, 1851, 43S, 

■* Governor's Message, 1854, 9- ^ Supra, 41. 



?I48 Land Grants for Education in the [220 

1854. The Legislature now had an opportunity to atone for 
the errors by which the former grant had been sacrificed. 
But the policy of the State had become fixed, and many of 
the lands were appraised and offered for sale on the terms 
estabhshed by the law of 1852. In 1859 the clauses provid- 
ing for appraisal were repealed, leaving the minimum price of 
all unsold appraised lands at three dollars.' In 1863 the price 
of all lands once offered for sale without finding a purchaser 
was reduced one third,^ and in 1864 the price of all lands 
which had never been appraised was fixed at three dollars 
per acre.^ 

No voice seems to have been raised against these laws 
until it was too late to correct the evil. In 1871 the opinion 
was ventured that the State, and not the university, had re- 
ceived "whatever benefit may have been derived from such 
sales."* In 1872 the Governor arraigned the policy which 
.:had prevailed, and asserted that nine tenths of the value of 
the fund had been sacrificed by hasty sales at low prices.' 
In the same year, the Legislature, in the preamble of an act 
making an appropriation for the university, formally con- 
demned the whole policy hitherto pursued, and confessed 
that it was too late to effect any benefit by a change.^ 

*Wis. Laws, 1859, 226. *Wis. Laws, 1863, 431. 

' Wis. Laws, 1864, 514. The constitution required an appraisal of all lands 
I before they were offered for sale. It is difHcult to see how this law and the 
constitution can be reconciled. 

^Report, Supt. of Pub. Instruction, 1871, 22. ^Governor's Message, 1872, 17. 
® The preamble reads : 

Whereas, It has hitherto been the settled policy of the State of Wisconsin to 
• offer for sale and dispose of its lands, granted by Congress for educational 
purposes, at such a low price per acre as would induce immigration and location 
thereon by actual settlers ; and 

Whe7'eas, Such policy, although resulting in a general benefit to the whole 

"' State, has prevented such an increase of the productive funds for which such 

grants were made as would have been realized if the same policy had been 

pursued which is usually pursued by individuals or corporations holding large 

tracts of lands ; and 

Whereas, The university fund has suffered serious loss and impairment by 

such sales of its lands, so that its income is not at present sufficient to supply its 

wants, and cannot be made so by any present change of policy, inasmuch as the 

: most valuable lands have already been sold, therefore," etc. — Wis. Laws, 1872, 

-114. See also Report of Regents, in Wis. School Reports, 1S74, 85, 86. 



22 1 ] Northwest Territory. 149 

Finally, in 1876, the Legislature, in voting a permanent tax 
for the support of the university, put on record another 
lasting condemnation of its earlier policy, by declaring that 
this tax should be deemed " a full compensation for all de- 
ficiencies arising from the disposition of the lands donated 
to the State by Congress in trust for the benefit" of the 
university.' Thus the mismanagement of earlier days has 
entailed on the present and all succeeding generations a 
burden of taxation to compensate for early prodigality. 

But the fund was impaired in another way, and for several 
years the result of the impairment promised to be perma- 
nent. In 1862 the Legislature authorized the regents to use 
the principal of the fund to pay off indebtedness incurred in 
the erection of buildings." In accordance with this act 
$104,339.42 was taken from the fund.' This act was clearly 
in violation of the conditions of the grant, and of the pro- 
visions of the constitution, by both of which the proceeds of 
the land were to form a permanent fund for the support of 
the university." In 1867 the Legislature authorized the an- 
nual payment by the State of seven per cent, on the amount 
thus wrongfully taken from the fund,^ and this sum has, 
since 1876, been included in the permanent tax levied for 
the benefit of the university. About twenty-two hundred 
acres are still unsold,' and the fund is $228,438.83,^ which is 
invested in government and municipal bonds, and in loans 
to various counties. Including the money used for the erec- 
tion of buildings, the proceeds of the sales are $333,778.25, 
or an average of three dollars and seventy-one cents per 
acre. 

C. — AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE GRANT. 
{a) OHIO. 

When Congress passed the Agricultural College bill all the 
public lands in Ohio had been sold, hence the State received 
scrip for the six hundred and thirty thousand acres to which 

^ Apud Whitford, 71. 'Whitford, 70. 

"Wis. Laws, 1862, 168. * Report, Com. of Pub. Lands, 1S82, 6. 

'Whitford, 69. ^ Report, Sec'y of State, 1882, 12. 

* See Governor Washburne's Message, 1872, 17. 



150 Land Grants for Education ill the [222 

she was entitled.' Under the terms of the grant the State 
was prohibited from locating this scrip/ and it was supposed 
by many that the only method of utilizing it was to sell it 
for the best price obtainable. This was a manifest disad- 
vantage, for so long as public lands were abundant in the 
United States, the scrip could by no possibility become 
worth more than the cash price of government lands — that 
is, one dollar and a quarter per acre. The expedient adopted 
by a few States of transferring the scrip to the trustees of 
the college, by whom it could be located and the land held 
so long as was deemed advisable, did not suggest itself to 
the Legislature of Ohio. 

In 1865 the Auditor, Secretary of State, and Treasurer 
were authorized to offer the scrip for sale, but to accept no 
proposition at less than eighty cents an acre.^ On the pro- 
ceeds of the sale,- which were to be placed in the treasury, 
the State was to pay six per cent, interest. Though the 
minimum price thus fixed was but sixty-four per cent, of the 
nominal value, it was not far from the actual market value 
of the scrip at the time, owing to the vast quantities then 
obtainable from the different States. Offers were made to 
the commissioners for the purchase of the entire quota of 
Ohio at eighty cents per acre, provided a short credit would 
be given for the payment.* This the commissioners decided 
they were not authorized to grant, and no sale was made. 
The General Assembly at its next session removed the limit 
on price, and instructed the commissioners to sell the scrip 
"at the best price they can obtain for the same," and to 
make " prompt and vigorous efforts to effect the sales." 
Where scrip for ten thousand acres was purchased by any 
party, payment might be made in instalments covering a 
period of three years, and any one purchasing fifty thousand 
acres was allowed six years in which to make payments.^ 
Under this law the entire amount was soon sold for $340,- 
906.80, all but seventy thousand acres being sold at fifty- 
three cents per acre.^ This enormous falling off from the 

^ Document A, 230. ^ 62 Ohio Laws, 189. ° 63 Ohio Laws, 139. 

"^ Supra 24 and note i. ■" Education in Ohio, 205, ^ Education in Ohio, 206, 



223] Northwest Territory. 151 

offers of the previous year caused the Legislature to call upon 
the commissioners to state " why the land scrip belonging to 
the State was sold, part of it on time, for less than fifty-three 
cents an acre, while the government was selling lands at one 
dollar and twenty-five cents an acre." The commissioners 
promptly denied that any had been sold for " less than " 
fifty-three cents, and defended themselves on the ground 
that they were instructed to make *' prompt and vigorous 
efforts to sell at the best price obtainable." * With this reply 
the matter ended. This magnificent gift, like the others re- 
ceived by the State for educational purposes, was sacrificed 
by an undue haste in turning it into money. The scrip had 
been sold before any college was incorporated to take the 
benefit of the grant, but in 1870 the income of the fund was 
bestowed upon the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
lege, better known as the Ohio State University.'' The 
college was located in October, 1870, in the suburbs of Co- 
lumbus, the county of Franklin giving three hundred thou- 
sand dollars for the erection of buildings and equipment of 
laboratories. The fund arising from the sale of the scrip had 
in the meantime been accumulating in the treasury,' and by 
the time the college was opened had increased to over four 
hundred thousand dollars. 

In 1872 the State gave to the college certain lands, which 
it had just received from Congress,* and ordered their sale at 
public auction after a careful appraisal.^ Something over 
twenty thousand dollars has been received from them, and 
some are still unsold.^ The proceeds of these sales are added 
to the fund belonging to the college, all of which was, in 
1877, made a part of the irreducible debt of the State, with 
interest payable semi-annually.'' Portions of the income 
have for some reason been withheld from the use of the col- 
lege and added to the principal until the latter has increased 
to $558,529.^ 

' Ibid. * 67 Ohio Laws, 20. ' 67 Ohio Laws, 15. ■• Supra, 34. 

^ 69 Ohio Laws, 52 ; 70 Ohio Laws, 107. 

®Up to November, 1881, the receipts were $20,506.63. Exec. Docs., 1881, 
Part I., 184. '' 74 Ohio Laws, loi. ^Auditor's Report, 1882, 17. 



152 Land Grants for Education in the [224 

{b) INDIANA. 

In Indiana, as in Ohio, there were no public lands when 
the grant was made, and the State received her quota of 
three hundred and ninety thousand acres in scrip. In 1865 
trustees of the " Indiana Agricultural College" were appointed 
and made a body corporate with power to sell the land scrip 
" at such times and in such manner as shall be most advan- 
tageous to the State." ^ The act made no provision for the 
establishment of a college, but simply constituted proper 
authorities to dispose of the grant. It was provided in the 
law that the proceeds of the sales should be invested in 
United States bonds bearing not less than five per cent, 
interest, and that the interest should be invested in a like 
manner as fast as it accumulated until the Legislature should 
make some further provision for establishing a college in ac- 
cordance with the requirements of the act of Congress. The 
trustees sold the scrip at an average price of fifty-four cents 
an acre.'^ The proceeds, amounting to $212,238.50, were in- 
vested as the law directed. The reasons which induced the 
trustees to dispose of the scrip at this price, I have been 
unable to learn. 

No agricultural college was organized until 1869, when 
one was established near La Fayette, under the name of 
Purdue University, in honor of a gentleman who gave to it 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and a hundred acres 
of land for a site. To this gift Tippecanoe County added 
fifty thousand dollars. The donations were used for the 
erection of buildings, but the university was not opened until 
1873. I^ the meantime the fund had increased by the accu- 
mulations of interest. In this way the effect of the hasty 
sales was partially counterbalanced, though the present fund 
of three hundred and forty thousand dollars ^ represents but 
eighty-seven cents an acre for the grant. 

' Indiana Laws, 1865, 106. 

''President Owen erroneously states it at " sixty cents to the dollar," which 
would have been seventy-five cents an acre. — See Report, Supt. of Pub. Instruc- 
tion, 1872, 134. 

' Report, Supt. of Pub. Instruction, 1S82, 179. 



225] Northwest Territory. 153 

{c) ILLINOIS. 

Illinois received the four hundred and eighty thousand 
acres of land to which she was entitled, in the form of scrip. 
In 1867 the Legislature created the Illinois Industrial 
University, and transferred the land scrip to the trustees as 
an endowment fund for the new institution. Under the act 
of Congress making the grant, these trustees had the right 
to locate the scrip. Had the trustees sold half the grant, 
the income would have been sufficient for the immediate 
needs of the college. Then by judiciously locating the rest, 
and selling the lands gradually as they increased in value, a 
vast fund might have been produced. This plan seems to 
have been favored at the outset, and twenty-five thousand 
acres were located in Minnesota and Nebraska.' Then, for 
some reason, the trustees adopted the other plan, and sold 
the rest of the scrip at seventy cents an acre, realizing from 
the sales $319,178.87,'' which was invested in State and 
county bonds. 

The university was located in Champaign County, and 
received from the county about four hundred thousand 
dollars in farms, buildings, and money for the construction 
of other buildings.^ The Minnesota and Nebraska lands. 
have not been sold and are rapidly increasing in value. It is 
not improbable that, though they constitute but one twentieth 
of the original grant, they will produce over one third as 
much as was derived from the entire amount of scrip sold. 

{d) MICHIGAN. 

In Michigan the establishment of an agricultural college 
preceded by several years the grant of lands by Congress. 
The constitution of 1850 required the Legislature to provide 
for such an institution as soon as practicable,^ and at the 
session of 1853 a bill to organize the college passed one 
branch, but failed to reach consideration in the other. In 
1855 an act was passed establishing the college, and appro- 

' Pillsbury, cxliii. * Illinois School Report, 1877-8, 171. 

^Ibid, * Constitution, Art. XIIL, Sec. 11. 



154 Land Grants for Education in the [226 

priating twenty-two sections of the saline lands for the 
purchase of a site and the erection of buildings.' The pro- 
ceeds of the lands amounted under existing laws to nearly 
sixty thousand dollars. With this and forty thousand dollars 
appropriated by the Legislature the college was organized 
and equipped. From this time until the grant was received 
from Congress and rendered available, the institution was 
supported by legislative appropriations. The State was 
urged to give to the college a considerable portion of the 
proceeds of the swamp lands, but contented itself with 
granting those situated in the four townships adjoining the 
college. These amounted to six thousand nine hundred and 

o 

sixty-one acres,^ and were subsequently sold for $42,396.87,^ 
and the proceeds used for various needs of the college. 

When the Congressional grant was made the Legislature 
placed the selection and disposal of the lands in the hands 
of a board known as the Agricultural Land Grant Board, 
and put a minimum price of two dollars and fifty cents per 
acre upon them.^ Commissioners were sent out by the 
board to examine the eligible public lands in Northern 
Michigan. For some reason, possibly upon the supposition 
that lands selected for the endowment of an agricultural 
college should be farming lands, the board carefully ab- 
stained from locating any tracts of pine, which are now the 
most valuable lands in that part of the State.^ Those chosen 

' Mich. Laws, 1855, 279. There were seventy-two sections of saline lands 
belonging to the State. In 1846 a minimum price of four dollars an acre had 
been placed upon them. (Revised Stat., 1846, chap. 60.) The proceeds of 
twenty-five sections were used in erecting buildings for the asylum for the deaf, 
dumb, and blind. (Mich. Laws, 1848, 246; 1849, 137; 1850, 334.) Twenty- 
five sections were given to the Normal School as an endowment fund. The pro- 
ceeds of these last, with the exception of eight thousand dollars used for the 
erection of a building, were to be borrowed by the State at six per cent, interest. 
(Mich. Laws, 1849, 157, 221 ; 1850, 127.) The last of these sections was sold in 
1868, and the total fund of the school is $69,126.04. (Report, Supt. of Pub. 
Instruction, 1882, 19.) The remainder of the original grant is accounted for 
above. ''Joint Docs., 1858, No. 7, 33. 

^ Governor's Message, 1883. ^ Mich. Laws, 1863, 201. 

^ It is related that when the commissioners were on the eve of starting out to 
search for eligible lands, one of the members of the board suggested the pro- 
priety of their seeking only agricultural lands, as the grant was for an agricul- 



227] Northwest Territory. 155 

were, however, of good quality. The patents were obtained 
for them in 1868, and the board raised the minimum price 
to five dollars an acre.' Very few were sold during the first 
year, and the Legislature, leaving the price of timber land at 
five dollars, reduced that of all others to three dollars an 
acre.^ A considerable quantity was sold at these prices. 
In 1880, upon the suggestion of the Commissioner of the 
State Land Office, the board raised the price to five dollars 
per acre.^ 

By the law of 1863 it was provided that the proceeds of 
the sales should be invested in stocks yielding not less than 
five per cent, interest." This was a mere compliance with 
the conditions under which the grant was held. In 1871 it 
was ordered that the receipts be placed in the treasury, and 
that the State pay seven per cent, interest thereon.* Of the 
two hundred and forty thousand acres which the State re- 
ceived, one hundred and thirty-four thousand, or considera- 
bly more than half, are yet unsold.* The average price 
received for those sold is three dollars and forty-seven cents 
an acre, and the fund is $367,117.24.' The remaining land 
is of good quality, and if the minimum price now established 
is adhered to, as it should be, the ultimate fund cannot fall 
short of a million dollars. 

(r) WISCONSIN. 
In 1863 the Governor of Wisconsin was authorized by the 
Legislature to appoint commissioners to select the two hun- 
dred and forty thousand acres of land to which the State 

tural college, but that if they saw any good pieces of pine they might make a 
mimete of their situation. Upon the return of the commissioners with a long 
list from which the board might select, the farming lands were chosen for the 
college, while the member of the board who had offered the advice at the out- 
set shortly afterward became a large purchaser of pine lands, which have since 
become extremely valuable. The State in one of its latest advertisements of the 
lands says " they were carefully selected for farming lands." 

' Smith, 79. ^ Report, Commissioner of Land Office, 1882, 6. 

^ Mich. Laws, 1869, 51. * Mich. Laws, 1863, 201. 

^ Mich. Laws, 1S71, 87. Slightly amended in 1875. 

® January I, 1883, the State still owned 134,249 acres. 4,337 acres of the 
grant are not yet located. 

' Report, Supt. of Pub. Instruction, 1S82, 18. 



156 Land Grants for Education in the [22S 

was entitled.' The commissioners located the lands in seven 
of the newer counties of the State/ and the selections were 
approved by the Secretary of the Interior. In 1866 the 
University of Wisconsin was re-organized, and a college of 
arts, embracing instruction in agriculture, mechanics, en- 
gineering, and kindred industrial arts, was established in 
connection with it. The income arising from the Agricul- 
tural College grant was pledged to the university as an 
endowment in addition to that which she already had from 
the seminary lands.' At the same time it was ordered that 
the lands be immediately offered for sale at public auction 
at a minimum price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per 
acre.* Once offered at auction and not sold, they were sub- 
ject to private entry. Since then the price has remained 
unchanged, and the greater part of the lands has been sold 
at the legal rate. 

Thus again the Wisconsin policy manifested itself. After 
selecting the best lands which the commissioners could find, 
the State might reasonably have placed a higher price upon 
them than was asked by the United States for lands. In- 
stead of doing so she offered them for sale on better terms 
for the purchaser than those given by the United States, for 
while the latter sold all lands for cash, the State disposed of 
hers at the same price on credit. She could hardly have 
done less in execution of the trust without violating it ; she- 
ought to have done far more. 

While Wisconsin has been selling her lands for a beggarly 
dollar and a quarter per acre, Michigan has been receiving 
three and five dollars per acre for lands obtained under the 
same grant. Starting with the same number of acres, 
Michigan, as already stated, has a fund of $367,000, and 
134,249 acres still on hand, valued at five dollars an acre ; 
Wisconsin has accumulated a fund of $279,689.84,' and has 
sold all but 19,889 acres," which are held at one dollar and 

1 Wis. Laws, 1863, 408. ' Wis. Laws, 1866, 153. 

" Butterfield, 106. " Ibid. 

' Report of Commissioners of Public Lands, 1882, 21, 24. This, like the other 
educational funds of Wisconsin, is invested in United States and municipal 
bonds and in loans to various counties. Ibid. , 20. 



229] Northwest Territory. 157 

twenty-five cents an acre. Michigan's ultimate fund will be 
a million dollars, while Wisconsin's will not much exceed 
three hundred thousand, and can by no possibility become- 
as large as the fund which Michigan has derived from less 
than one half of her grant. Since the two States received, 
at the same time, the same amount of land of a similar 
quality, the above comparisons afford a most striking illus- 
tration of the results of the two ways of managing lands 
granted for educational purposes. 

D.— CONCLUSION. 

Thus far the chief object has been to present the raw 
material of historical facts, and to that end I have traced the 
origin, management, and disposition of every grant made to 
the States of the Northwest Territory for the purpose of fos- 
tering education. Occasional criticisms have been passed, 
and, in a few instances, the good or bad features of a single 
measure or a particular policy have been indicated. It re- 
mains to take a general survey of the subject, to decide 
whether the cause of education has derived the utmost pos- 
sible good from the federal aid, to indicate the leading 
causes of trouble encountered, and to draw a few conclusions 
from the experience of the five States. 

Viewed from the standpoint of the existing tangible 
funds, there can be no question that a greater amount of 
money might have been realized from the grants. It is 
needless, after the facts presented in the foregoing pages, to 
enter into any proof of this. When good lands have been 
sold for from fifty cents to one dollar and a quarter an acre ; 
when portions of the proceeds have been lost by poor in- 
vestments or by embezzlement ; when speculators have 
jumped at the opportunity of purchasing at the prices 
fixed, and have made fortunes by reselling the lands shortly 
afterwards at greatly increased prices, that might have been 
obtained by the State itself, few will deny that the funds 
might have been made larger. But we must not fall into 
the error of assuming that a wise or unwise management 
of an educational grant is to be determined solely by 



158 Lmtd Grants for Education in the [230 

the amount of money which the State derives from it for a 
permanent fund. The factors in the problem are more 
numerous, and the process of solution far more complicated, 
than that which comes before the ordinary real-estate 
dealer seeking to derive the greatest number of dollars from 
the fewest possible acres of land. 

The grants were made for the support of schools and col- 
leges, not during the life of one generation, but of all suc- 
ceeding generations — the earliest and the latest. The first 
thought, then, would be to sell the land as soon as pur- 
chasers could be found, in order that the first generation 
might derive a benefit from it. But the income, if sufficient 
to afford school facilities for the children of that generation, 
would fall far short of the needs of the next and more 
numerous. On the other hand, to retain the lands unsold 
for three or four decades would deprive the earliest gen- 
eration of school-children of all benefits of the fund. If, 
in this dilemma, we seek to ascertain the intention of the 
grantor we shall find ourselves no nearer a solution. The 
fact that the first school reservations were made as an in- 
ducement to purchasers would seem to indicate that Con- 
gress designed the grants to be used by those who were 
brave enough to venture into the territory when it was a 
wilderness, and by buying land from Congress assist in re- 
lieving the financial pressure under which the country was 
groaning. But this presumption is destroyed by the fact 
that in early days a State was not permitted to dispose of 
its educational lands, and that a whole generation had passed 
away before Congress allowed them to be sold. 

The acts of Congress under which the grants were held by 
the older States provided that certain land be reserved or 
granted " for the maintenance of common schools," or a col- 
lege, thereby showing that it was intended to create a perma- 
nent fund. It is doubtful, however, if any member of the 
Congress of the Confederation had a well-defined plan for 
utilizing the grant. Whether the resultant fund should be 
large or small, whether the grant should be immediately 
turned into money, or be disposed of slowly, in order to ac- 



231] Northwest Territory. 159 

cumulate a larger ultimate fund, became, therefore, questions 
of state policy simply.' 

The argument in favor of an early sale of the grants is 
based on the theory that a little money for the maintenance 
of schools and colleges in the infancy of a State, when the 
people are poor, is of more service than a far larger sum at a 
later day, when the accumulations of wealth enable a large 
part of the necessary support for education to be raised by 
taxation. This theory, if sound at all, can apply only to 
primary or common schools, for the circumstances can never 
exist which make it wise to sacrifice the ultimate endowment 
of a college or great university for the mere sake of opening 
the institution a few years earlier. No one will deny that 
Ohio University would be far stronger to-day, and better 
fitted to perform its work, if its lands had not been disposed 
of before the year 1835. And there were opportunities else- 
where sufficiently near at hand where the few youths who 
composed its first twenty classes might have obtained in- 
struction. Nor is the theory universally sound when applied 
to the common schools. One may admit the general truth 
of the statement that a little help at the beginning counts 
for more in the end than greater assistance at any one time 
thereafter. But this is not admitting the right of those in 
existence when an educational grant is made to despoil the 
heritance of the coming millions for the sake of lessening 
the burden of providing their own children with an educa- 
tion. 

In the early days of a State the inhabitants are few and 
the school-children are not numerous. The State is cer- 
tainly unwise if, for the benefit of these, it undertakes to sell 
all its school lands, those in the remote and sparsely settled 
regions as well as those near its centres of population, for 

' " Whether the public fund shall be ample or meagre, whether it shall be 
sufficient to place our schools and seminaries of learning on high and elevated 
ground, or leave them to pine and droop, will depend in a great measure on the 
course that shall be adopted in respect to them. It is a fund which ought to be 
held sacred, and religiously regarded. Its benevolent object is to promote the 
best good of the State in all future time." — Report of vSuperintendent of Public 
Instruction ; Senate Jour., Mich., 1837, Appendix, Document 7, 67. 



i6o Land Grants for Education in the [232 

such prices as the current demand will obtain. Shall the 
first generation, as in Illinois, go free of school taxes because 
those who come later can better afford to pay ? Would it 
have been just to the present generation if Wisconsin, in 

1836, had obtained, from Congress, as some of her legislators 
desired, a cash grant for schools equal to one dollar and a 
quarter per acre in place of the lands themselves ? On the 
other hand each generation has the right to demand that its 
interests shall not be sacrificed to those of its successors. 
For a State Legislature at the outset to set a price on the 
land far above its value would perhaps be as unjust as delib- 
erately to undervalue all the lands. 

What, then, is the happy medium ? Is it possible even 
abstractly to mete out equal justice to all, and to discover 
any definite rule by which to proceed ? My study of the 
question leads me to believe that it can be done, and that 
Superintendent Pierce of Michigan formulated it roughly in 

1837, when he recommended that the lands be sold " gradu- 
ally as the wants of the country and a sound discretion might 
seem to require," and when he maintained that the disposi- 
tion of the lands would be the wisest that would ultimately 
yield the greatest amount of revenue for the support of 
schools, and at the same time provide so soon as possible for 
the education of those^hen of school age.' This statement 
needs precision and definiteness to make it applicable in 
practice, but it contains a correct principle. If the school 
lands are to be sold, let them be disposed of, the most valu- 
able first, in such quantities and on such terms that as nearly 
as may be each of the earlier generations shall derive an in- 
come approximately equal to what the rents of the rentable 
school lands would afford at that time. In a new State rents 
will gradually appreciate for many years, and when they 
cease to rise no larger income will accrue in the future. If 
now the educational lands are leased under proper restrictions 
imtil that time, equal justice is done to all beneficiaries. If 
the State prefers to begin at once with sales in fee, the same 
result will be brought about by fixing as a minimum price of 

^ Senate Jour. , Mich., 1837, Appendix, Document 7, 68, 70, 74. 



233] Northwest Territory. 161 

the entire grant the present value of the choicest lands. As 
the population increases and settlements are made, the out- 
lying land will rise in value to the fixed minimum, and will 
find ready sale. In the meantime, until it is worth that 
price, it can be leased on such terms as are thought wise or 
possible. 

This system would produce an income approximately equal 
to the average rent. It is the plan at the bottom of the system 
of Michigan, beyond question more successful than any other 
State in dealing with the problem, though unfortunately the 
original plan has suffered at the hands of later legislators. It 
is essentially the system pursued by Nebraska, which, by its 
constitution, has forbidden sales of educational lands for less 
than seven dollars an acre, and has ordered that they be 
rented until they attain that value.' This plan is not a mere 
theory, and can easily be carried out. It was as practicable 
in 1802, when Ohio first attacked the problem, as it is to-day 
for Nebraska and other Western States. 

Taking the results that would have been attained by a 
strict adherence to this or a similar plan, as a criterion by 
which to test the results actually reached in the five States 
under consideration, one is forced to admit that the States 
of the Northwest Territory have failed to handle their edu- 
cational lands to the best advantage. Some States have 
made more serious mistakes than others, but no one of them 
is entirely blameless. There has been one disturbing factor, 
however, impossible of complete elimination in the actual 
working of the problem, that did not appear in the theoretical 
solution. So long as lands of the United States are abun- 
dant in a State, it is difBcult to lease educational lands, and 
impossible to sell them for more than the price of govern- 
ment lands, except in the settled portions of the State, unless 
some great inducement in the way of easy terms of payment 
be offered. No man will pay five or ten dollars in cash for 
an acre of school or university land, if he can purchase 
equally good government land in the same locality for one 
dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. Several of the States 

' Constitution of Nebraska, Article VIII., Sec. 8, g. 



1 62 Land Grants for Education in the [234 

succeeded in reducing this troublesome element to compara- 
tive insignificance by offering educational lands on long credit. 
To the almost moneyless immigrant this was a convenience 
sufficient to make him willing to pay a far higher price than 
if immediate payment had been demanded/ 

After making all necessary allowance for such disturbing 
elements, it will be found that the present condition of the 
funds is due almost solely to causes for whose existence and 
potency the Legislature and the people are directly responsi- 
ble. These causes are neither obscure nor difficult of analy- 
sis. Some of them have been indicated in the preceding 
pages, but may be restated here. 

First: An undue haste in selling the lands. The best evi- 
dence of this is that in most of the States prices have been 
several times reduced, because sales were not progressing 
with sufficient rapidity to satisfy the Legislature. One of 
the Western States has attempted to guard against this evil 
by forbidding any sale of school lands until sales are author- 
ized by a vote of the people of the State at a general elec- 
tion.^ Another has provided that the educational lands 
shall not be sold for a certain number of years after the 
adoption of the constitution.^ 

Second : Careless legislation and lack of restrictions on the 
Legislature. Many carelessly framed and ill-advised laws 
have been adopted, leaving loop-holes for fraud and for false 
and unfair appraisals of the land. No constitutional restric- 
tions having been placed on the law-making power, the Legis- 
latures have been enabled to fix any price they have desired 
upon the lands, and as a result absurdly low prices have 
been established. In short, the trusts have been subject to. 
the caprice of ever-changing and fickle-minded bodies of 
public servants. Some of the younger States have provided 
effectually against this evil by constitutional enactment fix- 
ing the lowest price at which educational lands may be sold.* 

* As these deferred payments bore interest, the transaction was for the State 
both a sale and an investment of the proceeds. 

' Constitution of Kansas, Article VI., Sec. 5. 
'Constitution of Minn., Article VIII., Sec. 2. 

* See Constitution of Nebraska, Article VIII., Sec. 8. 



235] Northwest Territory. 163 

Thirds Failure to guard and invest properly the moneys 
received from the land sales. It has been shown that many 
of the provisions for the investment of the funds have been 
of a lax and unbusiness-like character, and as a result losses, 
easy of avoidance with proper care, have been of common 
occurrence. Then, too, in several instances the lack of any 
checks upon the officials who have had the handling of the 
funds has resulted in dishonesty and embezzlement. This 
phase of the subject should have received the most careful 
attention, for however discreditable it may be to human 
nature and to morality, it is certain that public trust funds 
have come too generally to be treated as exempt from the 
operation of the eighth commandment. While theoretically 
the most sacred of all public funds, they are really the most 
liable to mismanagement and plunder. Costing the people 
nothing, they are not subjected to the same watchful scrutiny 
as other funds. Every thing realized from them is regarded 
as clear gain, while what is taken from them, either directly 
or indirectly, is hardly felt as a loss.' 

The people of Indiana learned this after a hard experience, 
and in their constitution, adopted in 185 1, made each county 
responsible for the safe handling of the portion of the fund 
in its possession, and required it to make good all losses. 
The constitutions of Nebraska and Colorado also require the 
State to " supply all losses that may in any manner accrue " 
to the educational funds." While these provisions will not 
prevent dishonesty on the part of officials, they are effectual 
in protecting the funds. Many of the newer States and 
some of those in the Northwest Territory have also adopted 
constitutional provisions requiring all educational moneys 
to be invested in certain classes of securities. The educa- 
tional funds of Texas, for example, can be invested only in 
bonds of the United States or of the State of Texas,^ while 

' " All history shows that charitable funds, unless faithfully protected by public 
authority, become subjects of the very greatest abuse." — Legislative Documents, 
Ohio, 1838, II., No. 17. 

"Constitution of Nebraska, Art. VIII., Sec. 9. Constitution of Colorado, 
Art. IX., Sec. 3. 

'Constitution of Texas, Art. VII., Sec. 6. 



164 Land Graiits for Education in the [236 

in Nebraska the investments must be in United States or 
State securities or registered county bonds of Nebraska/ 

The policy adopted by many of the States, of borrowing 
the educational funds at a fixed rate of interest, and making 
the loan permanent, has already been alluded to."" While it 
renders the fund secure and the income steady, the wisdom 
of any system must be questioned which subjects the people 
to a perpetual tax to pay the interest on loans made for the 
benefit of a single generation of their predecessors. In Ohio 
and Michigan, for example, the school funds have been per- 
manently borrowed by the State and used to defray various 
expenses of the government. To-day the entire support for 
schools in those States is raised by taxation, and the school 
funds are purely ideal, constituting merely a -moral and legal 
obligation on the people, to lay an annual tax forever, suffi- 
cient to pay the interest on the funds spent by their ances- 
tors. 

Fourth : The general indifference of the people to the whole 
subject. Upon receiving the grant from the General Gov- 
ernment, the people were usually content to place in their 
constitution some finely phrased general statement, declaring 
that the trust should form a perpetual fund, and should be 
preserved inviolate. This done, the matter was left to the 
Legislature and State officers. The subject was not one to 
attract popular interest, and even the legislators themselves 
gave it little thought, save when they received petitions ask- 
ing for some change, and a change, it must be borne in 
mind, invariably meant either a reduction in price or relief 
from past contracts.' The ex-parte statements of petitioners 
have generally been accepted, and the desired legislation 
passed. The citizens, as a whole, have paid not the slightest 
attention to a matter affecting the entire State, and involv- 
ing hundreds of thousands of dollars. What was every- 



" Constitution of Nebraska, Art. VIII., Sec. 9. Nebraska has erected many 
safeguards for the protection of her educational trust funds, and her constitution 
is worthy of study on these points. 

"^ Supra, 76, 99, 113, and especially 84, note i. 

^ I have run across but a single petition asking for an increase in the price of 
-the land, or suggesting any thing for the benefit of the fund. 



237] Northwest Territory. 165 

body's business became, as usual, nobody's.' The only 
remedy for this evil seems to be the establishment of certain 
definite regulations in the State constitution, since when a 
constitution is framing, and then only, is any popular interest 
in the subject likely to be manifested. 

Fifth : Special legislation. A sufficient number of instances 
where special laws have been passed, always against the 
interests of education, have already been mentioned, such 
as relief laws, reduction of price in special cases, and repeal 
of revaluation clauses for particular townships. So long as 
special legislation is tolerated in such matters it must be 
expected that the cause of education will suffer. The rem- 
edy is simple, and, the younger States are beginning to apply 
it, by forbidding all special legislation in matters affecting 
the school funds.'' 

Sixth : TJie attempt to divert educational funds from their 
proper object, or so to dispose of the lands as to accomplisJi other 
State purposes to the injury of the cause of education. This 
evil has appeared openly in but two of the States — Illinois 
and Wisconsin. In the case of the former the seminary 
lands were thrown into the market at an extremely low 
price, more than a quarter of a century before any college 
was endowed or organized. The motive in selling the lands 
was unquestionably that the State might obtain money to 
meet its expenses without resorting to increased taxation. 
So flagrant an abuse can hardly occur in this day and age. 

The other instance is the fixed and avowed policy of Wis- 
consin of offering her educational lands at low prices in order 
to attract immigrants. This policy has already been criti- 
cised in the sketch of the legislation of Wisconsin. There 
are those, however, who maintain that the State acted 
wisely ; that she swelled her population, thereby adding to 
her wealth ; and that, though the proceeds of her land grants 
are less than they might have been, her increased wealth 

' " We have been the passive recipients of the bounty of the United States, 
and have by our neglect and mismanagement wasted thousands of dollars of this 
bounty." — Debates, Constitutional Convention, Indiana, 1851, p. 1891. 

* See constitution of Oregon, Art. IX., Sec. 23 ; also the present constitution 
of Indiana, Art. IV., Sec, 22. 



1 66 Land Grants for Education in the [23S 

enables her to make good the deficit by annual taxation. 
This theory omits all notice of the fact that it is not gener- 
ally considered lawful to use trust property in any other way 
than that specified in the instrument creating the trust, even 
though the trustee may see that by handling it differently 
he can profit the beneficiary more. But the theory itself is 
not confirmed by facts. The reports of the Land Commis- 
sioners and of legislative committees in Wisconsin show 
that, though much land was sold at the low prices estab- 
lished, the greater part of it was bought by speculators, who 
resold it to the actual settlers at far higher prices. There 
is nothing to indicate that the policy had any direct effect 
in attracting immigrants. The great quantity of govern- 
ment land and the natural advantages of soil and climate 
were far greater influences in that direction.' In any aspect 
of the question it seems almost beyond doubt that the State 
threw away a large part of her educational endowment. 

While such uses of the federal grants are not likely to be 
made by other States, there are no certain means of prevent- 
ing similar semi-diversions of the trusts from their proper 
objects. The only safeguard is a public sentiment that will 
not permit the spirit of a trust to be violated under cover of 
conformity with the letter. 



It would be unjust to the five States under consideration 
to omit all reference to the good results which have flowed 
from their various land grants. Even though much has 
been wasted, through causes for which the States were 
wholly responsible, the grants have been instrumental, in a 
degree that cannot be estimated in mere dollars and cents> 
in promoting the cause of education. It is doubtful if with 

^ The view that the low price of educational lands had no perceptible effect on 
immigration seems to be borne out by the figures of the United States census 
reports, which show that the percentage of increase in population in Wisconsin 
over that in Michigan (a State of equal advantages and similarly situated) was 
greater in the decade from 1840 to 1850, when Wisconsin had not commenced 
selling her lands, than it was from 1850 to i860, during which decade half her 
school lands passed into the hands of purchasers. 



239] Northwest Territory. 167 

the wisest management the school land could have been 
made to maintain unassisted the work for which it was set 
aside. Perhaps the greatest benefit rendered by the funds 
has been in fostering among the people a desire for good 
schools. Without the land grants, the burden of maintain- 
ing free schools would have seemed oppressive to the new 
State, but aided by the income of the funds, the people 
have grown into a habit of taxing themselves heavily for 
the support of education. Thus the funds have made prac- 
ticable a system of education which without them it would 
have been impossible to establish. Each one of the States 
now raises annually for the support of schools, by taxation, 
an amount of money many times larger than the income 
of the sixteenth section funds. Undoubtedly the schools 
would be still stronger had they the benefit of the wasted 
grants ; yet in no one of the States is the cause of common- 
school education allowed to languish, because of the follies 
committed in managing the trust fund. In this way have the 
States made some reparation, though the present and future 
generations pay the penalty in heavier taxation for the mis- 
takes of their predecessors. 

What has been said of the common schools cannot be 
maintained of the colleges and universities endowed with 
the " seminary townships." The cause of higher education 
does not lie so near to the hearts of the people as does that 
of primary education. The common school is within the 
reach of every one, while the university can be used by 
but a small number of the youth of the State. Every cent 
of taxes laid for the benefit of a college is begrudged by a 
large part of the commonwealth, and not infrequently the 
State refuses to render any assistance whatever to its own 
university. It is then doubly important that the best possi- 
ble management be displayed in handling the " seminary " 
land grant. Every dollar lost to the endowment fund by 
carelessness, or thrown away by hasty sales, cripples the 
college by making it more dependent on the State. In none 
of the States of the Northwest Territory is the institution 
receiving the benefit of the land grant self-supporting, Ohio 



l68 Land Grants for Education. [240' 

has made little attempt to atone for the errors that de- 
spoiled her State universities of their endowment. Michi- 
gan, Indiana, and Wisconsin within the last twenty years 
have nobly aided their State universities by large appro- 
priations.' In Wisconsin the law making a permanent ap- 
propriation specifically declares that it is in compensation 
for deficiencies arising from the disposition of the seminary 
lands, and the same frank acknowledgment of error might 
with equal justice be made by the other States. 

While these appropriations have been of great service to 
the beneficiaries, and go far to atone for past errors ; and 
while there is manifest a constantly increasing willingness to 
afford the universities all needed facilities, they are neverthe- 
less dependent on the State for an indispensable part of their 
income which may be withheld at any time ; whereas, had 
the lands been wisely managed, the income from the funds 
alone might have been sufificient for all their needs through 
all time. 

' In Michigan, since 1873, a permanent annual tax of -^th of a mill on each 
dollar of the taxable property has been levied for the benefit of the university. 
Up to January i, 18S3, the total appropriations for the university amounted to. 
$896,671. 

In "Wisconsin the university receives the benefit of a permanent annual tax of 
-|-th of a mill on each dollar of taxable property. In addition to this the 
university has received from the State $235,769.84. 

In Indiana the university receives a permanent annual appropriation of 
$23,000, and has besides received various special gifts from the State. 



APPENDIX. 



169 



170 



Land Grants for Education hi the 



[342 



p 

H-1 



o 
in 



< 

< 



;3«^ 




N 
l-l 


•* 


« Si 


>^ 




4©- 


^ i^ 


■S 






"S 


"S s 








tJ 


2 c^ 


1^ 




■^0 






1) 








H-( 


^ (S 


w- 






^ 


U >-i 








c! ^©. 












1 


,« 


-^ 
















!^^ 





en 











■^ w 


cn 


CO 


u 





e) in 





in 



<!M. 



P. o 



i-i m 


CO vn 


ino vn 


r^ 


vO ^vC 


M IH 


00 >n 


in 


':^ CT Tt- 


CO vO 






vO 





M en 


en (S 



N 1- w 
O O 00 
000 



M en 
o o 
en o> 



o 5 en 



CO r^vO 
CO 1- \o 
rj- en o _ . 

^ O* x/^ S - O 
O vnoo '—Co 



in u t; 



=; s 



< 






V 




3 


m 


■3 


N 


> 


in w 


•a 



rJ-O 


"-°° 


tl 


i-T ^ 


S 




re 


■#©> 


» 




B 


000 


°'a 


^00 


OQ C 


CJ 00 




in -^ ai 


M en 11 


< 


M 


1 


en in w 


e 


ir^ 


*j u 


M d 6 00 




Cq w N M 


vo_ q_ o_o_ 0^ 


2" 


i-T t-^ fT t^ 


en 1-. M M 1-1 


■ie> 


a «■ 




' 5f^, 


in t-^ r^ t^ 




00 00 r^ ■^ CI 


d d d en M 




3^ 


n 




r^ ■* rj- 


3 


00 00 


U 


d^ d co" ti 


4-a 


M I^ " CO 


i 


in f-" ^ 


1 s 


00" d" rC 


in ^ !-■ r^ 




m en en en N 




■^ 




" M 


00 . 


m M 


S2 


r~ w 


a 


d" 0" in u^ d" 


en CMn M 




en ts- M c^ 




u 




u 




i3 






e 


"E, 


' 2 
' 




1 s 


u ^S 




tfi &i 


: 2 


00000 


I 


c 


-^ 


c c 






o" 0" 0" 0" 0" 




en ooo -il- ■* 




vO en •<i- M (N 




o.S 




tjO « 




> 11 s 




•5- = 3S 


■3 






B 
1) 


i"*"; 


^' 3 C 




2 3 - :§ "S 




• • • fi.S 




1 o.i'2:cS 




1 ;=-o.S.ii.2 



243] 



Northwest Territory. 



\^l 



\ 






'C' 


a 








^-; 






N 


k2 






o 


<u o 






o 


»- ;/) 








O 






o" 


^, 






t^ 




t; •^ 








-i' o 






c 


^ o 






**-. ^ 








o S 


ii -s 


C<S 


o 

^d 


'£ ;i E 


p-i 


o 


"7 ,/ o 


r^ 


w 




^ ^s 


o' 






o = ■- 


o> 




8 1.% 

o I-" 5 














<-/> ^ 
















•* 






•— VI 








§1 




-I- 


■o 


't^ 


t^ d 


vd 


M 


I^ o 


o 


•rt- 


c£ 


o o 


o 


o 


ftj 








"" « 


en O 


r^ 


\n 


Si 3 


ro O 


o 


vO 


(US 


<B o_ 


to 


n 




<» 




■^ 


o 




"5 


O 








'o 


0^3 


tJ - - 




"S 




c : : 


(J 

1-1 
u 


o 
u 

V 

O -^ 


2|^ 














<u 








.£ 
















•C t^ . 








O 2 4J 


I-' w CO 


-t 


»-< 


c -. S 


r^ 04 r^ 


IH 


vO 


^5-H 


d CO -f 

-t O r^ 




d^ 


B) 5 " 


vo r^ O 


M 


't 


\n ci «" 


6- 


»-( 


j;:/2S 


N "■( in 


lO 


r^ 


N t 


O 


o_ 










<5^ 


11 w 


»r> 


CO 


o 
















, 








""rt - 








« c ^ 


t O yn 


M 


IT) 


.g::5 


1- lOvO 


«^ 


CO 




CO* eJ d 


•T 


ir> 


u-> o r~. 


o 


O 


t T t 
•^ 4 r^ 


CO 
CO 


6 


y n K» 


»n \n<a 


r^ 


o 


b o - 


CO PI 


CO 


0) 










<"S — 


M CO 


i^ 


^ 






c 


.s 






ri 


o 
u 






u 














O^SS 


s 


?J 





O 


J o 


^ 


^a 


< 


S 1" 


kJ 






'>-* *^ 


W 


'^'« 


^ 






d J3 
-H 


J 



r= c 



pq 
< 



O 00 



CL c/1 





C 






T) 








'n 






(U 


Z ; 






fn 






3 






y 








U) 














1> 














> 








to 












c/j 


-r 






Tj 


^ 




>^ 


CO 






J2 


« 




^ 


»-< 






s 






•a 


4J 






u 








o 












O 


_C 






*^ 






1) 










. , 


•5' 


t-i 


a 






p 




i^ 


p 


^ 






£ 


, 


•^ 


in 


i; 






1 


1 





'-J 


c/5 








. bJO 


£ 


U 


-3 






£ 


\.3 






o 






s 







P 




iJ 










£ 


s 

o 


R 




t-> 


o _. 


s 


.a 




t: 




< 


y 


•g 


c 


tu 




1 


'^% 




o 


1 


>> 




c 


2 u 


" 


4~t 


1. 


,a 






3 i/) 






'c 


£ 


"o 


rt 






O 


c 


3 


O 


rt 


*-• 'x 


- 






^_ 




<u 


CJ3 O 






c; 


C<;^ 








5 






























^ 






















ji 






vO 






C) 


r. 






M 






•* 


o 




















CO* 






fi 








>n 






M 








00 
lO 






CO 


1 

a 








o 


o o 


-+ 


^ 








o 


o o 





en— * 








Q 


o d o 


"C cj 








o 


ci o 


c< 


c « 








Q 


CO o 


•H 


ft> — 














o 








»tO CO 


O^ 


o 








o 




vO 










€©> 


^— 










r^ 




-r 




•a 


o 




■* 




o 






-f 




d 




>d 




C4 




CO 




-t 




o 


o_ 




-1- 




"S- 


















£ 


M 




o 




r^ 




-t- 




CO 




o 






<©■ 








)H 






vO 




O 




o 










•»t 




CO 




o 


0) 




o_ 




O 




^ 


-t 




CO 




o" 




a 




Cl 




'S- 
















-^~- 






































^ 


c 


c 
















.2 




cj 
C 
r! 


3 


_tJ3 


c 










'5 


;n 


"o 


S2 




O 






s 


s 


?J 



172 



Land Grants for Education. 



[244, 



Q 
-< 

> 

H 
00 

W 
> 



pq 



3 c 








^- 




M 


CO 




^ 


<^ 


•c-a 






■*-* 


U-i 




d 


c4 


-y 








(St M 




2 


2 


■|d 




aj 




^ 




»^ 


)-. *"^ j-i 






u u 








c^ rt 










C 


^ 






tl • 








ir 


vO 


CO 


M 


Sfi'o 


N 


CO 


r^ 


to 


vn 


c< 


t-H 


u 


00" 




cT 


c . 


00 n 


en 


CI 


00 c^ 


CO CO 




*J 0) 


d d d 


MO >A 


d^ 


C K 


00 CO 


M 


■«t 


^ 


00 H 


CO CO 


w 


£ 


I< u^ rf 


C^co" 


rf 


£ 


^©^ 


en 


M 


0) u 


' ' o ' 00^ 


r^ 


M 


00 <N -t 


00 


r^ 


oi Tj- IN !-■ 


kH 


CO 


<'L 


<f> 


M 










T3 






^ 


C 


T^ c» 


M vO 


CO 


3 
t 


r^ r^ 


COO 


00 


>d orj 


CO r>. 


00 




to en 




CO 


CO 


CO 


'^ 




" 








0^00 


CO 


co" 




cno 


in -r 


M 


Oh 


^ 


t-( tn 


M 


1>2 






c^ 

CO 






rj- 


d> 

CO 




^-^ 0) 






^ 


,. ^ "5 


-^* 







- - - - 





_ 


rt 


.U ri 




M-4 











c 


2 





,,_, 


«3 1- -r inco u 


3 CO 





c 


N " 


S.O. 




3 











vo tn <Ti ONO oj 


>« 0" 


Cl 


a 


^ (N MO ■* p. 


"* 





< 


^ 












>-. dj 


>, 
































'S 


: 









_s 


4) 




(/5 

c 


C3 


:s -2 .s -g s 


^ 











.« 






<-, 


^ 




. 




CI 












til 
.2 2 
►S K 


fc/J 


13 









1 



3 S 



n 




















■*-• 


<i> 




c^ 


-c 


<u 


•C 


■d 

0) 
























g 







c4 


c 




CO 

3 


3 




3 


3 


x: 


C 

3 








m 


■»j- 



















rt 










cd 





V 


J3 


csa% 


f 


to 


•0 


TJ 


C 


rn 


o-o 


c 


J3 


^< 


B 








«-<i 








•^ 







245] ^^^^ ^f Authorities. 173 

FULL TITLES OF BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THIS PAPER. 

Adams: " Historical Sketch of the University of Michigan," by Charles K. 
Adams. Ana Arbor, 1S76. 

Annals of Congress : The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the 
United States, from 1789 to 1824. Washington, 1S34-1S56. 

Atw.'VTER : "A History of the State of Ohio,. Natural and Civil," by Caleb 
Atwater. Cincinnati, 1838. 

Bancroft: "History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United 
States," by George Bancroft. 2 vols. N. Y., 1S82. 

BUTTERFIELD : " History of the University of Wisconsin from its First Or- 
ganization to 1S79," by C. W. Butterfield. Madison, 1S79. 

Campbell: "Outlines of the Political History of Michigan," by James V. 
Campbell. Detroit, 1876. 

Chase : Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwest Territory Adopted or En- 
acted from 17SS to 1S33. . . . Illustrated by a Preliminary Sketch of 
the History of Ohio ; edited by Salmon P. Chase. Cincinnati, 1S33-35. 

Congressional Debates : Register of the Debates in Congress from 1824 to 
1S37. Washington, 1824-1S37. 

Democratic Review. 31 vols. Washington and New York, 1837-1852. 

Document A. 46;h Congress, 1st Session, Exec. Doc. No. 47. Part 4. (Report 
of Public Land Commission, 18S0.) 

Document B. 30th Congress, ist Session, Senate Doc, No. 2. 

Document C. 30lh " 2d " i Reports, No. 130. 

Document D. 31st " 1st " Senate Reports, No. ig. 

Document E. 35th " ist " 2 Reports, No. 261. 

Document F. 31st " ist " 2 Reports of Com., No. 335. 

Document G. 31st " ist " Senate Tieports, No. 127. 

Education in Ohio : "A History of Education in Ohio," prepared by authority 
of the General Assembly. Columbus, 1876. 

Edwards: " History of Illinois from 1778 to 1S33, and Life and Times 
of Ninian Edwards," by Ninian W. Edwards. Springfield, 1870. 

Ford : " History of Illinois," by Thomas Ford. Chicago, 1854. 

Gerhard: " Illinois as It Is ; 1856," by Fred Gerhard. Chicago, 1857. 

Globe : The Congressional Globe, containing the Debates and Proceedings of 
Congress from the 23d to the 42d Congress. Washington, 1S35-1873. 

Gregory: "School Funds and School Lav/s of Michigan," by John M. 
Gregory, Superintendent of Public Instruction. Lansing, 1S59. 

Hildretii : "Pioneer History"; Being an Account of the First Examina 
tions of the Ohio Valley and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Terri- 
tory, by S. P. Ilildreth. Cincinnati, 184S. 

Howard: Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Couit of 
the United States. 

Illinois Laws : See Laws, 

Indiana Laws : See Laws. 

Indiana Reports : Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of 
Indiana. 



174 List of A-nthorities. [246 

Jefferson : " The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," edited by II. A. Wash- 
ington. Washington, 1853-54. 
Jdufriils : Use has been made of the journals of the various sessions of Con- 
gress and of the State Legislatures ; also of the journals of Constitutional 

Conventions. The reference given in each case is sufficiently descriptive. 
Journals of Congffess: Jouriial' of Congress, containing the proceedings from 

Sept. 5, 1774, to Nov. 3, 17SS, publishedby order of Congress. 2d edition. 

4 vols. Washington, 1823. 
Julian: "Political Recollections, 1S40 to 1S72," by George W. Julian. 

Chicago, 1S83. 
Laws : Use has been made of the Session Laws of each State ; also of volumes 

containing territorial laws passed prior to the admission of each State ; in 

all about three hundred volumes. The reference given in each case is 

sufficiently descriptive. 
Michigan Laws : See Laws. 
Morse : " Thomas Jefferson," by John T. Morse, Jr. [American Statesmen.] 

Boston, 1882. 
N. A. Review : North American Review. Boston and New York, 1815- 

1S84. 
Ohio Laws : See Laws. 
Ohio Reports : Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme 

Court of the State of Ohio. 
Pickering: "The Life of Timothy Pickering," by Octavius Pickering. 

Boston, 1S67-1873. 
PiLLSBURY : " Sketch of the Permanent Public School Funds of Illinois," by 

W. L. Pillsbuiy. Published in Illinois School Report for 1 88 1-2. 
PooRE : " The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other 

Organic Laws of United States," compiled by Ben : Perley Poore. Wash- 

ington, 1877. 
Public Lands : " Public Lands ; Laws, Instructions, and Opinions." Part I. 

Laws; Part II., Instructions and Opinions. Washington, 1S38. 
Reports : Frequent use has been made of the annual and special reports of 

State officers and legislative committees. The reference given in each case 

is sufficiently explicit. 
Salisbury: "Historical Sketch of Normal Instruction in Wisconsin, 1846- 

1876," by Albert Salisbury. Madison, 1876. 
Schools of Indiana : " The Indiana Schools and the Men Who Have Worked in 

Them," edited by James II. Smart. Published by the State Board of 

Education. Cincinnati [1876?]. 
Shearman: "System of Public Instruction and Primary School Law of 

Michigan." Prepared by Francis W. Sheannan, Superintendent of Public 

Instruction. Lansing, 1852. 
Smith : " Historical Sketches of Education in Michigan," by W. L. Smith. 

Lansing, 1881. (Also found in the Report of the Superintendent of Public 

Instruction, Michigan, for 1880.) 
State Papers \ American State Papers ; Documents, Legislative and Executive, 

of the Congress of the United States from the ist Session of the ist to 



247] ^^^^ ^f -Authorities. 175 

the 2d Session of the 38th Congress, inclusive. Folio. Washington, 
1832-1861. These documents are arranged in ten classes. Those referred 
to in this paper are " Public Lands," 8 vols., and " Miscellaneous," 2 vols. 

Statutes : See Laws. 

Sumner : " Andrew Jackson as a Public Man," by William Graham Suziner. 
[American Statesmen.] Boston, 1S82. 

Ten Brook : " American State Universities and the University of Michigan," 
by Andrew Ten Brook. Cincinnati, 1S75. 

U. S. Laws : Laws of the United States to 1S39. 9 vols. Bioren and Dconc. 
Washington. 

U. S. Statutes : Statutes at Large of the United States of America, i7S9-:373. 
17 vols. Little, Brown, & Co. Boston, 1S45-1S74. 

Walker : " History of Athens County, Ohio," by Charles JL Walker. Cin- 
cinnati, iS6g. 

Whitford : " Historical Sketch of Education in Wisconsin," by W. C. 
Whitford. Madison, 1876. 

Wisconsin Laws : See Laws. 



RUSSIA vs. ENGLAND 

IN ASIA. 
AFGHANISTAN and the Anglo-Russian 

Dispute. A. comprehensive account (based upon the 
official reports and the personal experiences of Russian and 
British officers and travellers) of the advances of Russia, 
during the past two centuries, in the direction of British India, 
together with a description of the approaches to Afghanistan 
and of the country and its people, and a survey of the available 
military resources of the contesting powers. By Theo. F. 
RoDENBOUGH, Bvt. Brigadier General, U. S. A. With three 
maps, corrected to date, two portraits, and fifteen other illus- 
trations. Octavo, Cloth, $i.oo ; paper, 50 cents. 

CONTENTS: 

I — Through the Gates of Asia. ■ 

II — On the Threshold of India. 

Ill — The British Forces and the Rouies of their Appko.acii. 
IV — The Russian Forces and the Lines of their .Vdvanck. 

V — Review of the Military Situation. 

MAPS: 
I. — Afghanistan and the Surrounding Territories (Drawn for tiiis Work 
and Corrected by the Latest Advices). 
II. — The Asiatic Territories Absorbed by Russia during the Past Two 
Centuries, with ihe Dates of the Various Annexations. 
III. — Tlie Russian I.ines of Advance from their Base of Supplies. 

FLLUSTRATIONS: 
Abdurrahman Khan, Ameer of Kabul — Entrance to the Bolan Tass, 
from Dadur — The Ishbola Tepe, Khaiber Pass — Watch-Tower in ihe 
Khaiber Pass — Khelat-i-Ghilzi, between Kandahar and Ghazni — The Cily 
if Kandahar — Castle of Zohak, on llie Irak Road to Kabul — Fort of Dakkn, 
.11 the Kabul River — Entrance to the Kliojak Pass, from Pishin, on ihe 
Road to Kandahar — .An Afghan Post-Chaise, Going to the Front — Furl of 
Ali Musjid, from the Heights above Lala Cheena, in the Khaiber Pass — 
Gate of the Bazaar at Kabul — Noah's Valley, Kunar River — Jelaiabad, 
from Piper's Hill — Khan Baz, a Khumbhar Khel Afreedi. Tooro Baz, a 
Kookie Khel Afreedi — Nahar Khan (a Tajik), Khan of Pest Bolak. 
Jehandad (Lohanir), froni Ghazni — WuUie ISIohammed, a Dahzungi 
Ilazara. Pozai Khan, a Shinwarri (Musician) — Zool Kuddar, an Adam 
Khel Afreedi. Mousa, a Kizilbash — Major-Gencrai, Sir F. S. Roberts — 
Gorge in the Tirband-i-Turkestan, through which the Murghab Flows — The 
Order of March in Central Asia— Detail of Elej^hniK Snrl,ll,.— Klinlmnis 
with Artillery, on the Road to Ali Musjid. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, 

NtW YORK : LONDON : 

i-, and 29 West Twenty-third Street. 25 Henrietta St., Covent Garden. 

(over) 



QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 



I. The Independent Movement in New York, as an Element in 
the next Elections and a Problem in Party Government. By 

Junius. Octavo, cloth $i oo 

II. Free Land and Free Trade. The Lessons of the English Corn- 
Laws Applied to the United States. By SAMUEL S. Cox. 

Octavo, cloth 75 

III. Our Merchant Marine. How it rose, increased, became great, 

declined and decayed ; with an inquiry into the conditions es- 

, sential to its resuscitation and prosperity. By David A. 

Wells. Octavo, cloth $i oo 

V. The American Citizen's Manual. Edited by Worthington 
C. Ford. Part I. — Governments (National, State, and Local), 
the Electorate, and the Civil Service. Octavo, cloth . 75 
VI. The American Citizen's Manual. Part II. — The Functions 
of Government, considered with special reference to taxation 
and expenditure, the regulation of commerce and industry, pro- 
vision for the poor and insane, the management of the public 
lands, etc. 8vo, cloth . , . . . . • ~ 75 
VII. Spoiling the Egyptians. A Tale of Shame. Told from the 
British Blue-Bocks. By J. Seymour Keay. Octavo, cloth, 75 
IX. The Destructive Influence of the Tariff upon Manufacture 
and Commerce, and the Facts and Figures Relating 
Thereto. By J. Schoenhof. 8vo, clolh, 75 cents ; paper, 40 
X; Of Work and Wealth. A Summary of Economics. By R. R. 

BOWKER. Octavo, cloth 75 

XI. Protection to Young Industries as Applied in the United 

States. A Study in Economic History. By F. W. TAUSSIG. 

Octavo, cloth ..... 

XII. Terminal Facilities. By W. N. Black. 

XIII. Public Relief and Private Charity. 

Lowell. 8vo, cloth, 75 cents ; paper 

XIV. " The Jukes." A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and 

Heredity. By R. L. Dugdale. Bvo, cloth . . $1 00 

XV. Protection and Communism. By Wm. Rathbone . 25 

XVI. The True Issue. By E. J. Donnell . . . .25 

XVII. Heavy Ordnance for National Defence. By Wm. H. Jaques, 
Lieut. U. S. Navy . . . . . . . 25 

XVIII. The Spanish Treaty Opposed to Tariff Reform. By D. H. 
Chamberlain, Jno. Dewitt Warner, Graham McAdam, 

and J. Schoenhof. 8vo, paper 25 

XIX. The History of the Present Tariff. By F. W. Taussig. 75 

XX. The Progress of the Working Classes in the Last Half 

Century. By Robt. Giffen. 8vo, paper . . 25 

XXI. The Solution of the Mormon Problem. By Capt. John 

Codman. 8vo, paper ....... 25 

XXII. Defective and Corrupt Legislation; the Cause and the 
Remedy. By Simon Stkrne. 8vo. paper . 25 

XXIII. The American Caucus System. Its origin, purpose, and 

utility. By George W. Lawton " 

XXIV. The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837. I*^^ origin and 

disposition. By Edward G. Bourne . . , . 



75 

i2mo, paper 25 

By Josephine Shaw 
40 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, New York and London. 



.. .. PAPERS 

OF THE 

AMERICAN 
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

Vol. I. No. 3 



HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT 

OF 

LAND GRANTS FOR EDUCATION 

IN THE 

NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

(Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin) 
By GEORGE W. KNIGHT, Ph.D. 



NEW YORK & LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
1885 



PRICE ONE DOLLAR 



American Historical Association, 

Organized at Saratoga, N. Y., September lo, 1884, 



President : 



ANDREW D. WHITE, 
President 0/ Cornell University, Ithaca, N, V. 

Vice-Presidents: 
JUSTIN WINSOR, CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS, 

Librarian of Harvard University , Cambridge, Mass. Professor of History, University of Michigan, Ann 

Arbor, Mich. 

Secretary : Treasurer : 

HERBERT B. ADAMS, CLARENCE WINTHROP BOWEN, 

Associate Professor of History , Johns Hopkins No. 2^1 Broadway, New York. 

University, Baltitnore, Md. 

Executive Council: 
(in addition to the above-named officers) 



MOSES COIT TYLER, 

WILLIAM B. WEEDEN, ^„^„^,, of A,nerican History, Cornell Uni 

Providence, R. I. Ithaca, N. Y. 

CHARLES DEANE, EPHRAIM EMERTON, 



rsily. 



Cambridge, Mass. Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Harvard 

Ufiiversiiy, Cam-bridge, Mass. 



CONSTITUTION. 



L 

The name of this Society shall be The American Histori- 
cal Association. 

II. 

Its object shall be the promotion of historical studies. - 

III. 

Any person approved by the Executive Council may become 
a member by paying three dollars ; and after the first year may 
continue a member by paying an annual fee of three dollars. On 
payment of twenty-five dollars, any person may become a life- 



member exempt from assessments. Persons not residents in the 
United States may be elected as honorary members, and shall be 
exempt from the payment of assessments. 

IV. 

The officers shall be a President, two Vice-Presidents, a 
Secretary, a Treasurer, and an Executive Council consisting of 
the foregoing officers and of four other members elected by the 
Association. These officers shall be elected by ballot at each 
regular annual meeting of the Association. 

V. 

The Executive Council shall have charge of the general 
interests of the Association, including the election of members, 
the calling of meetings, the selection of papers to be read, and 
the determination of what papers shall be published. 

VI. 

This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting, 
notice of such amendment having been given at the previous 
annual meeting, or the proposed amendment having received the 
approval of the Executive Council. 



PROSPECTUS. 



The American Historical Association will publish original 
contributions to History in the form of serial monographs, each 
complete in itself, bearing its own title, pagination, and price. 
The monographs will, however, be numbered in the order of their 
publication, and paged not only each for itself, but each continu- 
ously with the series, so that when complete the entire volume 
may be bound and indexed. Members of the Association, in 
consideration of their annual fee of $3, paid to the Treasurer, 
will receive the publications of the Association as soon as issued 



from the press of G. P. Putnam's Sons, 27 and 29 West 23d 
Street, New York City. Other persons can obtain these mono- 
graphs, each at its retail price, from the pubhshers or through 
any bookseller. All who wish to become regular subscribers for 
the papers of the Association, on condition of payment of $4.00 
in advance to the Publishers, are assured that they will receive by 
mail, in regular order and as soon as published, the several mono- 
graphs composing the First Volume, which will be completed 
before the close of the year 1885, and will comprise about 500 
pages octavo, with an index and general title-page. When com- 
pleted the First Volume will be offered in bound form at a 
price to be hereafter determined by the supply. The monographs 
will be issued at convenient intervals. The following numbers 
are now ready. 

No. I. Report of the Organization and Proceedings of 
the American Historical Association at Saratoga, September 
g-io, 1884. By Herbert B. Adams, Secretary of the Asso- 
ciation. Price 50 cents. 

No. 2. An Address on Studies in General History and 
the History of Civilization. By Andrew D. White, 
President of the Association. Price 50 ce^tts. 

No. 3. History and Management of Federal Land 
Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory. By 
George W. Knight, Ph.D,, University of Michigan. 
Price $1.00. 

All orders, subscriptions, and business communications, etc., 
should be addressed to the Publishers, Messrs. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, 27 and 29 West 23d Street, New York City, or 25 
Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London. 





-0^ 



.A^ 



,•0' 



■^. 



.■^- y' 



0^ 



• 0- 



•7- 






.\ ■ ,,•.'-''' ^ 



.x-^- 



^■' ,^^^ 



. .^^ 



t 






x^\ 






,^^^^^ 



\" 



>" o>' 



^■> -^.^ 


















C^ 


V 






v^ 


°^. 


^'" 










s 


S-t"' 


/ 






-p. 



M - \ 



'A"c 






rj^ S ?J - av 



<<■ 







-0^ ,^cO_^; «,'<::^ 






-\^ ., ^ ' » « 



•^o. 



-0- 



V. 



A 



--./.. o-V^ 



o 0' 



xO o. 



i-TT^^.. - = ,i"*. 



// c 



^. 



\' 


















m 






^-t\' 






'■/ 






'■ « -^^ 






*^ ^V-- 




'^^. v-^' 










"- .^^ 






^^^ 






o 



A^^^ ''^- 



^^. 



o. 



■ 0- 



.^^ 









^^^ 



x< "'^^ 



,0 



^^ 









/■.' 






^o°.. 







